


A Thief, a Trickster

by aelibia



Series: The First One's Daughter [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Abandoned cities, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Epidemic, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, BAMF Haruno Sakura, Blood and Gore, Buy One Get One Voltaire, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Death, Dimension Travel, Discount Philosophy, Dominant Haruno Sakura, F/M, Graphic Depictions of Illness, Graphic Description of Corpses, Grey Treepie Sidekick, Haruno Sakura Kicks Ass, Haruno Sakura is So Done, Haruno Sakura-centric, Hot Labs, I Was Drunk When I Wrote This, Kama (Weapons), Light BDSM, Medic Haruno Sakura, Medical Examination, Medical Procedures, Minor Character Death, Mystery, Naruto Founders Era, Naruto Post-Apocalyptic Conspiracy Theory, Pansexual Character, Protective Haruno Sakura, Queer Character, Research, Romantic Soulmates, Sakura Kills a Personification of Pestilence, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Strong Haruno Sakura, Submissive Uchiha Madara, Supernatural Elements, Terminal Illnesses, The Hot Zone, This is not philosophy 101 make up your own mind, Time Travel, Virology, Warring States Period (Naruto), We're Going in Hard on the Garden Motif, Weird Plot Shit, Will Edit Over Time, epidemic, no beta we die like men, spoilers in the tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:00:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27804220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aelibia/pseuds/aelibia
Summary: What happens after a happy ending?A mysterious, violent illness threatens the land of Fire, taking out entire villages in a matter of weeks. Sakura must use every trick up her sleeve to stop the epidemic in its tracks, but the deaths keep coming, spreading like wildfire and burning up victims just as quickly. With her resources stretched thin and the death count rising, Sakura goes on a journey to find the source of the disease and end it once and for all.Don't worry. It's not the first time she's killed a god.[Read the tags!! Contains graphic descriptions of Sakura working on the front lines of an epidemic.]
Relationships: Haruno Sakura & Original Character(s), Haruno Sakura & Uchiha Izuna, Haruno Sakura/Uchiha Madara
Series: The First One's Daughter [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2026121
Comments: 49
Kudos: 53





	1. it's been a while; you probably have questions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sakura weeds a garden, backless dresses sweep the nation, and a mysterious illness attacks a local village

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Note: This one has quite a different tone from the story that came before it. The writing style is a little more detached and it deals with the fallout from Sakura's association with Cunning. I also wrote it rather quickly, so it's officially in rough draft form until I go back and pick at it over time! My husband who is also my captive beta reader is focusing his attention on the monster of a Fallout 4 fic I just finished in January 2021.]
> 
> Me: Okay I’m done with that MadaSaku soulmate stuff, time to write more Fallout.  
> My brain: What about that epidemic plotline you came up with last year and could never find the right home for? It’s Topical now.  
> Me: hoe don’t do it  
> My brain: [manifests a complete outline for a sequel to the MadaSaku soulmate dimensional time travel bird orgy that centers around an epidemic]  
> Me: oh my god
> 
> A Grey Treepie: 

From among Chocorua's tenants,

From among the birds of Crowlands,

One in all eyes is a villain.

Loathed, detested, hated, dreaded,

Known to be a thief and ruffian,

Known to be a foul assassin,

Known to be a sneak and coward,

Hated doubly for [her] beauty.

* * *

Sakura walks the perimeter of her garden every day, looking for weeds to pull. 

Today she stands at the garden fence, admiring both the nice straight rows and Izuna’s delicate handwriting on the identification cards. She is currently plotting death against the chakravine for its sins against agriculture. 

On the porch, Candid hops between mounds of shiny, pointed leaves; she is Sakura’s personal summons: a grey treepie and an Uchiha crow. On a lovely spring day three years ago, Candid approached Sakura after a particularly grueling committee meeting. At first, Sakura had thought Candid was there to insult her and leave--most people don’t start a conversation with a stranger by criticizing the stranger’s choice of clothes. 

But after Sakura swallowed her pride and questioned the little bird, she found Candid to be earnest, even if her methods of help were (and are) nail-bitingly terse. _That_ had been the day Sakura learned she’d been wasting her time trying to coax a medical education alliance with a particular village; she would not, Candid pointed out, have any success should she continue to brazenly dress in colors worn by that village’s artisanal rival down the river.

The assiduous little bird continues to earn her name every day: Candid is blunt to the point of awkwardness regardless of her choice to become Sakura’s personal summons, but so too is she serious, observant, and methodical. Sakura couldn’t have a better assistant. Though, it did take foreign patients a while to accept the fact that a bird (with no sense of humor whatsoever) did most of the chores in the clinic. Candid checks people in, takes their vitals, puts rowdy patients in their place, and helps in the processing of ingredients. Today she is sorting through camphor leaves, putting them into piles to be dried or extracted for oil according to quality.

A shuffle within the little house becomes steady footsteps, and then Madara emerges through the front door. Sakura only lives at the main compound a few days out of every month, preferring the privacy and flexibility of a rural base of operations. The clinic is at the far border of the Uchiha Clan’s traditional territory, only fifty miles or so from what is becoming Konoha.

“Are those vines giving you trouble again?” Madara approaches her with the comfort of one who has settled well into domesticity. Sakura looks up to his face; along the way, her eyes travel up his body, taking note of his proud posture, the weapons ever-ready on his back, and the marks left by the rope she’d tied him down with the night before. 

(Madara likes to play dangerous games with her, pitting his strength against her clever knots. Because there is always some way for him to free himself--if he wanted to--Sakura has purchased special sticking seals that, when in contact with skin, cut off the wearer’s connection with their chakra. These are easily removable, even by the wearer, but they give an illusion of helplessness that excites Madara to no end.) 

Sakura enters the garden and savagely pokes at the offending plant. 

“I just don’t understand why they won’t stay on their stick thingy. Cordon. Trellis? I don’t know what it’s called, it’s like how people train grapes for wine, yeah? So I’ve tried training these to grow _up_ this way--like _that,_ see--since I planted them, but if I leave it for even a few days it goes back to _this_ shit again. Look, it’s just creeping everywhere like a hot mess, trying to steal space from all its neighbors. Son of a bitch.” 

Madara glares at the vines as though they offend him personally. “I cannot pretend to know anything about gardening,” he says. He is silent for a time, dutifully watching her fret over the mysterious forces governing plant behavior, and then: “Will you return to the compound today?”

“Yeah,” Sakura says. She drops the vine, tired of looking at it for the day. For the week, honestly. A stray breeze cools the sweat on her skin and sends the bone chime hanging from the cottage eaves chittering away; the tiny bones, taken from Candid’s prey and strung up in vertical columns, knock into one another in a cascade of hollow notes. 

“I’ll come with you now, actually. I want to be there when the runner reports in from Konoha.”

Madara holds his hand out to help her stand. Sakura takes it without hesitation, without anger that Madara must find her so weak she cannot stand on her own. She isn’t looking for ulterior motives anymore. The mark on her back warms enough to make her smile.

* * *

Sakura has done well for herself in this foreign existence. It has been five years since the garden party that changed her life forever--nearly seven since the day she first arrived--and in that time Sakura has endeavored to complete her personal mission: to provide a reliable, consistent, and affordable health care network in the Land of Fire. 

She is the lead researcher on the Konoha Health & Medicine Committee, which she helped found four years ago. The position provides her with enough funding and freedom to send away for exotic ingredients to study, while still allowing her influence over the Committee’s political trajectory.

Unfortunately, Sakura has also become mildly famous. One does not simply interact at length with a regional deity and come out the other end anonymous. Her soulmark does not help with things: after the garden party, people had Questions. Very reasonable questions from very reasonable people, mind you. 

_How long since She first cast her many Eyes upon you,_ they ask, hands over mouths as though to filter the hearsay. _What have you seen, jaybird girl?_ some say as she passes by. _Touched by the gods,_ hiss those who did not know better. _Poor thing,_ murmurs Izuna, as he passes her another serving of tea.

_We who abjure fate’s call may condemn the notion of destiny, but there are those who cannot help but be great no matter where or when they are._

(Madara will tell her this later, when everything is over.) 

Sakura gets used to people staring at her back after a while, which is ridiculously fitting given her adolescent goal to avoid looking at _other_ people’s backs. She’d meant it figuratively back then, mostly: she’d been thinking of the intangible balance of power and protection, not of the mechanics of who stood in front of who in the midst of battle. 

Yet now she is in possession of a back people _literally_ won’t stop looking at. Isn’t that funny? Izuna thinks it’s funny, when she tells him. They like to get a bit tipsy once a week or so and go through old Clan records together, giggling over all the petty disagreements and family drama immortalized on paper for as long as the paper will last. Usually, Sakura has at least one new story from her old life to tell, her memory piqued by something they’ve read. 

Madara isn’t so amused. Five years have not mellowed his personality in the slightest; he is still the same serious, dramatic, _intense_ man he’s always been. On the matter of Sakura’s watchers, he advises caution and dedication in putting rumors to rest. Sakura doesn’t care--she doesn’t _want_ to care, and anyway it is sometimes helpful for people to be a little awestruck. Civilians coming in for checkups don’t give her nearly as much lip as they once did. 

(Clever would be proud of her for manipulating an inconvenient situation to suit her needs. Sakura does her best to ignore this thought whenever it worms its way to the forefront of her mind. After all, it’s only _temporary._ Once Sakura earns enough respect through conventional means, the games can stop. Sakura keeps a mental countdown to the day she can set aside Sakura the Legend by Association and resume playing as Sakura Who’s Just Like You.)

Madara frowns and shakes his head slowly every time Sakura deflects and justifies and explains. _It will backfire,_ he says. _Fame always backfires, as does deception and condescension._

_Be careful._

Madara loves her, in his way. 

And so on her mate’s request, Sakura ponders her Cunning-shaped conundrum, for there is no putting the jay back in the birdhouse now. She considers her options, ruminates on the pros and cons of what has come to pass. There _are_ a great many benefits to her situation, even if Sakura does have to shoulder a few stares in order to cash in. At the end of the day, having an old god for a friend--or whatever the hell Cunning is--comes with unbeatable perks. 

(The only question is: do the perks outweigh the consequences?)

Having taken note of people’s obsession with her mark, Sakura requests that the Uchiha’s tailor adjust her daywear for maximum soulmark exposure. Subsequently, Sakura influences not only the state of Fire Country’s national health network, but _also_ Fire Country’s fashion trends. The popularity of outfits featuring plunging backlines explodes in the months after the tailor finishes her wardrobe. It results in a great many sunburns. Somewhere in the land of Wind, an aloe farmer is paying off his debts with enough money left over to buy the adjoining field.

Because there surely isn’t any harm in pressing the point _all_ the way home, Sakura’s clothing these days also flaunts expensive blues with vibrant red, black, and white accents. Her earrings are blue jay feathers, Cunning’s own from her jaybird form. Sakura requested them one day...out of the blue, as it were. And Cunning, after hearing Sakura’s justification--intimidation and possibly mayhem if necessary--was all too happy to oblige.

(Is it really possible to be normal ever again once you’ve been deified? Will Sakura be someone’s Cunning one day? Was Cunning ever A Bird, Just Like You?) 

Sakura’s armor is her silk-and-cotton plumage as well as her reputation, and she fastidiously preens both. The Uchiha and their vassal clans see the colors first, and the girl second. It’s what Sakura prefers, all the better to influence minds in her favor. _Don’t you see me?_ The colors say. _Who_ else _do you know who caught the attention of not one but two minor deities? You don’t want to find out what I did to be noticed, now do you?_

* * *

Cunning isn’t around as often as she used to be. She had taken Sakura under her wing in the style of mentor and mentee, not master and apprentice; there is no Bird Mountain where Sakura goes to train in Bird Technique and there are no Bird Ranks for Sakura to earn. That isn’t Cunning’s style. It isn’t the crows’ style. Coincidentally it isn’t Sakura’s style either. 

When Cunning does show up, it’s to sweep Sakura away on some madcap adventure; any morals or lessons therein are for Sakura alone to project. The first trip after the garden party is to a ramshackle market down on the border with the land of Water, where they spend a few hours laying waste to slave traders. Over the next few days, they return the stolen children to safe places, or to their original homes if they can. Another time, Cunning takes her to a deserted island and Sakura lounges in hammocks thinking of absolutely nothing for far longer than she should’ve. 

The last trip they’d gone on took Sakura to the land of Wind’s dune-filled eastern desert territory. Cunning had stolen a chair from...somewhere...and they’d planted it at a lonely oasis. Apparently Cunning saw this as peak comedy: “Can you picture it? Someone is traveling the wastes and finds this place and they think ‘oh, I’m saved’ and then they see the chair. _Who put it there?_ _Is it safe or is it a trap?_ That’s the good shit.” Cunning cackles with bright, toothy laughter: hoarse, sharp, biting.

Madara does not like the trips Sakura takes with Cunning. He respects and reveres the First One, as do all in the Uchiha Clan, but he doesn’t _know_ Cunning the way Sakura does. To him, Cunning is a near-mythological creature given to apathetic flights of fancy as likely to hurt as they are to help. Cunning is not inherently a wicked creature, but neither is she inherently good or wise. A wild card as free and boundless as the stars, Cunning bows to no master: not to another god, not to any human, and never to any social conventions. She is her own, in a way that few truly comprehend.

So when Cunning shows up at the main house while Madara is around, Sakura is treated to an unpleasant production: Izuna sighs, Madara’s expression becomes stony, and all the servants vanish into the woodwork. Those are the times Sakura is most receptive to her mate’s words of warning. 

When Cunning shows up at the clinic, those are the easy days. Only Candid is there to watch her leave, and Candid always watches until there is nothing else left to see. 

The Uchiha’s treatment of their patron is peculiar, Sakura thinks. But then, it must be so terribly difficult to meet a myth in person, to see in flesh and bone the creature your parents told you would snatch you up if you didn’t go to bed on time. 

On the whole, the Uchiha revere the First One like most people appreciate snakes: with respect and humility--after all, snakes eat the pests, don’t they?--but theoretically, and from afar. Sakura can relate. She loves Tsunade, but seeing her childhood idol get wasted every day for years gives Sakura a more pragmatic view of the divine. 

Probably, Sakura reasons, most of the Uchiha would _prefer_ for Cunning to have actually died according to the tales--or stayed dead, if she’d somehow come back--so that they can get right back to speaking of her in awestruck, reverent whispers worthy of an adequately distant historical figure: someone whose outlines were fuzzy enough not to worry over the fine details and the day-to-day.

The real Cunning is not built for reverence. It’s hard to revere something that pulls the clothespins off the line and smacks into glass windows after one too many barrels of hard cider. The Uchiha are a flexible people, for the most part, but they all deflate in relief when Cunning flies away. They’re ecstatic when her visits go from once a week to once a month.

They call Sakura the First One’s Daughter.

* * *

“It was horrible,” the runner says. They’re out of breath and hunched over beneath the dias with its black stone bowl brimming with fire, shaking hands on shaking knees. “Nearly the entire village, just...gone. There were five hundred of them. Now there are fifteen. My team and I escorted them to Hikone up the river, but people are frightened. The sickness came so suddenly. Some of the children died in just a few days after the symptoms first showed. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. Bodies everywhere...”

“You sent them away?” Madara tenses up on his mat. Sakura has taken the mat beside him in accordance with her station as Lady of the Clan. She watches him out of the corner of her eye, taking measure of his bearing so as to conduct herself most tactfully. If he hardens, she softens. If his rage runs cold, she runs hot. The balance is key to her strategy. 

“If it’s contagious, you’ve only helped the spread. Your team must leave at once to correct this error before it’s too late.”

The runner bows low. “Please forgive me, my Lord Madara. It was not my intention to be so careless.”

“There may still be time,” Sakura says. The runner looks up with stars in his eyes. He stares at her feathered earrings and not into her face--which of course he wouldn’t have done anyway, out of respect. Still, it grates a little. Sakura sets her jaw and adds more time to her mental countdown. 

“If you send the team back out immediately,” Sakura continues, “they can request that the remaining villagers quarantine themselves at the source of the outbreak. If they’ve survived it this long, surely they will continue to do so if adequate preparations are made. When we arrive at Hikone we will need to inform the village leaders that everyone must quarantine, just to be safe. We will also need additional people to help at the epicenter with the bodies. Since we don’t know what killed them, burning is the safest bet until we uncover more from the autopsies and survivor accounts.”

“Will you be going on to Nichitsu to assist with the investigation?” Madara asks her aloud. He only verbalizes for the sake of everyone else in the room, particularly for the Clan scribe’s benefit. In the seven years they’ve now known one another, Madara has learned her tells and can read her like a book inside and out. 

“I will,” Sakura says. “Candid, please go to the clinic and put together a standard outbreak kit. Meet me at the gates at dawn.”

“Of course, my lady.”

* * *

The stench of decay and fear hangs over the survivors like a fetid miasma. Sakura’s mind rushes back to that nameless little village Clever had taken her to, where the great bird cemented in her mind the criticality of community and respect. It is not the lesson Clever hoped she’d learn, but Sakura knows that while manipulation may produce results right away, the benefits of trust hold far more value in the long term.

(Do they trust you? Or just your reputation? Is it the same? Does it matter?) 

For years, Sakura has built up a network of farms, villages, and towns that know her face, who trust her medical expertise. She’d gone everywhere on foot, hunting down outbreaks and ailments, the news passed to her by guards and traders and denizens of that border town she’d run to so many times. People saw her filthy, on her hands and knees burning through rash and pus and decay, and only revered her more for it. Sakura has planted seeds of change in the land of Fire through a combination of politics and community outreach. 

(You didn’t want to make your name clinging to someone else’s wingtips. I understand.)

One of the seeds Sakura planted early on was the appropriate response to disease outbreaks. Over time, Sakura had figured out that the knowledge itself wasn’t enough. Clever had been right about that, at least. If you _really_ wanted protocol to stick, Sakura found, you had to plant it into the local culture through mediums like storytelling: not false information to trick people, but knowledge and empowerment transformed into narratives that would make them care and remember _._

If she could convince people they had real power to protect their communities from disease, they would go to any lengths to do so. Disease was no longer a tool for angry gods but a biological reality that could be tamed and even conquered. The rest was just imparting information in reasonably sized doses. 

Sakura is still figuring out what “reasonably” means. She might very well be figuring it out for the rest of her life. There is no “one size fits all” when it comes to public health education. Nothing is perfect. Sakura accepts this with the grace of one who will never see their garden at its best. That will be someone else’s garden, later. Still, she plants and prunes and weeds. 

Fortunately for Nichitsu's surviving residents, some of Sakura’s efforts are bearing fruit. The straggling survivors of the now-dead village have not exposed themselves to the population of the second village. They’d set up tents on the outskirts of Hikone and refused to go through the gates, fearful of spreading the scourge they could not see until too late. They remembered Sakura’s stories about the tiny invaders and set themselves apart, no matter how dearly they wanted to assimilate and begin the work of forgetting. They are, for now, safe. 

“Lady Jaybird,” they say, “Doctor Haruno--and Miss Candid--we’ve been waiting for you.”

She does not ask them why no one sent for her in the first place, when the symptoms started showing up. She will ask later, but now she must focus on containment and emergency response. 

The survivors tell her that a couple people were still alive when they left Nichitsu, a lone caretaker and a single victim too sick to move. After days of watching their families and neighbors die horribly, the transplanted survivors hadn’t insisted on finding the two stragglers when the Uchiha runners came through. 

On the way back to the epicenter, Sakura can smell Nichitsu’s stench from miles away: a worrisome sign. The actual interior of the village is horrific. The few remaining denizens were not able to bury the bodies on their own or cremate them quickly enough, and so they had attempted a mass grave. It hadn’t been dug deep enough; gases from the decomposing bodies have pushed up the surface of the earth, releasing unbelievable smells growing within.

(She is in her element.)

“I’m going to get some samples of things and see if there are still living ones,” Sakura says to Candid. “Why don’t you get some vials ready for filling and labeling? And set up the centrifuge. I’m going to see if I can get something out of the serum if that last patient is still alive.” With her antiquated supplies, it isn’t likely Sakura can perform blood testing to her satisfaction, but going through the motions adheres to good procedure, if nothing else.

Sakura approaches one of the houses. This one had been used as a makeshift morgue, it looks like--probably towards the beginning, before people knew how bad things would become. There are bodies on every flat surface, all of them smelling rotten. Some are on the floor, placed there or fallen from higher surfaces. Sakura gloves up and readies her scalpel. If there’s a secret hiding on these bodies somewhere, she’s going to dig it out.

Since there are so many subjects available, Sakura does a few partial field autopsies. She performs them out of sight from the survivors, looking for classic signs of diseases she knows that are fast killers: cholera or some manner of plague. But nothing fits quite right. The autopsies reveal a clear pattern, but it isn’t one Sakura has seen before. 

The bones of these victims have deep purplish-brown marks on them, like they’d been bruised, and there is evidence that the patients died violently--many of them show signs of hemorrhaging near the point of death, and in the fresher corpses Sakura can see evidence of swelling in the throat and smears of blood near the anal opening.

Candid flutters in from outside, landing on Sakura’s shoulder with a tidy _thwip_ of her delicate wings. 

“I have found the living one,” Candid says.

“Just the one?”

“Just the one. The person the survivors identified as the caretaker appears to be in the final stages of the disease. Her name is Asirpa. The patient she was treating is dead.”

(Funny how quickly we become nothing more than a title to these people. A descriptor that packs us away in a neat little box.)

“Bring me to them.”

* * *

Candid leads Sakura to a small room in the caretaker’s own home. The caretaker herself, Asirpa, is sprawled out on the floor; the bed is occupied by the disease’s second to last target. After donning a second pair of gloves over the first and affixing a mask to her face, Sakura lights every lamp in the room in order to see better. 

What she sees is pitiful beyond belief. Asirpa the caretaker thrashes weakly on the floor, unseeing and desperate to flee from the illness sapping what remains of her life. From her throat a death rattle comes, sickly and wet. When Sakura kneels to take a sample, Asirpa tries to shove her away, and so Sakura orders one of the survivors to come inside and hold the frail woman down.

Candid takes the vials of blood as they are filled and stuffs them into Sakura’s satchel after labeling them carefully, the way Sakura taught her. 

The satchel is a gift from Blanket--Sakura visits occasionally to hear more bone-stories--and contains a small pocket dimension into which Sakura may shove tangible objects. If she desires a certain object, she needs only to focus on it and the item will rush to her hand. The satchel is invaluable, if a bit mysterious, but like Blanket himself the satchel works best the less Sakura dwells on the _how_ and _why_. If she thinks too hard about it, it stops functioning properly.

“Haaahh,” Asirpa moans from the floor. Sakura holds the woman’s mouth open and sees the telltale swelling that had adorned most of the corpses. The back of Asirpa’s throat resembles bloodied raw meat, and a pus-like liquid emanates from everywhere therein. For a moment, Asirpa ceases all movement, and then she begins to seize. Asirpa’s skin burns like wildfire everywhere Sakura touches as she moves the caretaker into a safer position. The woman’s skin is too tender for her age, like a leaf in summer skeletonized by a caterpillar: still whole, technically, but paper-thin and dying.

(As all will come to pass.)

“She’s going to die very soon,” Candid says. “You’d better get your samples while you can.”

It’s difficult work. Asirpa’s blood pressure is so low that it’s difficult for Sakura to coax a vein to the surface. While she works, Sakura takes the opportunity to examine the caretaker more closely, taking note of the shiny-bumpy rashes on the woman’s skin, and the unusual bleeding: petechiae on the limbs, bleeding in the eyes and on the gums. 

It matches the bodies of the dead, but it’s still not enough to be decisive. It could be anything, and Sakura is not foolish enough to make declarations this early on. Sometimes, with outbreaks like this, you’d never find out what it was; it could very well happen that with the caretaker’s demise the disease would stop here in its tracks with no more bodies to invade: a killer cut short by virtue of burning through victims too quickly to metastasize. The sickness would crawl back into the deep forest and bide its time waiting for the next wretch to trigger the chain reaction.

(Disease never lets you forget what you are: an animal as killable as any other.)

“Make it stop,” whispers Asirpa. “Make them _stop_.” She seizes again and wheezes out a rattling breath. One of her last. She reaches for Sakura, groping blindly with her eyes shut tight.

Sakura takes the woman’s hand in her gloved ones.

“What is it, Asirpa? Tell me what you want to stop.”

“Birds everywhere,” Asirpa cries out. “Everybody saw them. They came for us in our dreams and then they came for us in the waking world. They came and made us all sick. Flesh dropping from their bones...”

Sakura’s heart skips a beat. “What birds did you see?”

Asirpa beats a fist on the packed earth, in frustration and in agony.

“Birds like demons, birds made of bones with no skin or meat, just bones and shadows of feathers. Flying in our faces, tearing us apart. Just bones, hollow bird bones, all clattering...they came for us in our dreams and then they came for us…”

(But do not despair: if you are an animal then you are among friends.)

Asirpa’s hand falls limply from Sakura’s grasp. The caretaker seizes one final time and then goes limp on the ground--suddenly, as though the string holding her life together has been cut by an unseen hand. 

And as Asirpa releases her final agonized breath, Sakura hears a crow’s uncanny laugh-shriek echo around and through the empty village, its source hiding somewhere and everywhere in the jungle-woods beyond the walls. 

The sound is fragmented and whole, jarring and familiar, the same identical notes overlapped on repeat, as though the single creature calling out possessed a few too many mouths. 

* * *

Crows are open in marauding,

Crows are black and bold and bragging;

Owls confine their crimes to twilight

Or the hours of moonlit silence;

Hawks in highest heaven hover,

Soar in sight of all their victims:

None can charge them with deception,

All their crimes are deeds of daring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> COMMENT CRINGE INCOMING. If you're not posting all-caps cringe in your author's notes then are you EVEN writing FANFICTION???
> 
> If the vibe for A Songbird, a Crow is “He 10 Hours,” the vibe for this one is the complete soundtrack to Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture.
> 
> If you've been here before, you know I like to offer comment prompts for people who want to respond to the story but aren't sure how or don't have the energy. Here we go again! As always, these are not a requirement. They are here as a scaffold for those who want one.
> 
> 1\. Have you looked through the Wikipedia page for "Corvidae" to see if you can guess what new birds I will inflict on you?  
> 2\. Are you ready for so many garden-based literary devices?  
> 3\. Have you ever cussed out a plant?  
> 4\. Which of the Weird Birds do you think will make reappearances?  
> 5\. How do you feel knowing that Sakura's big contribution to this dimension will be a toss-up between helping stop an epidemic and inventing the backless dress?
> 
> COMMENT, BABY. Let me feast upon the v a l i d a t i o n.


	2. do you remember me? do you think of me always?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sakura finishes up in the village, shit hits the fan, and Blanket interrupts tea time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The nice thing about a fantasy epidemic is that if an eldritch being is behind it you can physically curb stomp them, which you cannot do to a real epidemic

Clad in blue with snow-white trimmings,

Clean and smooth in every feather,

Plumed and crested like a dandy,

Keen of vision, strong of muscle,

Shrewd in mimicry and dodging,

Knowing every copse and thicket,

Warm in snow and cool in summer,

* * *

Sakura helps the villagers burn the bodies, directing them to wrap their hands and faces in damp cloth to help ward off any lingering pathogens. She doesn’t know yet how long the bodies remain dangerous after death, but it could be days. With most illnesses, even ones as deadly as cholera, the bodies are safe to touch within hours. But she doesn’t have that kind of certainty now, and it’s better to be safe than sorry.

“We’ll start working on the graves next,” Sakura says. The villagers had done their best with the tools at hand, and blaming them for improperly shoving their friends and neighbors into giant holes isn’t productive. 

Besides, just because the graves are communal doesn’t make it a _bad_ thing. She knows that this particular village generally preserves the skull of the dead and cremates the rest; having to resort to unfamiliar methods of interment must have been traumatic for the survivors. Sakura takes the extra time to help the villagers prepare those who have been dead longest and are thus safer to handle. They will have something, at least, to remember their innocence by.

A few more members of the Uchiha clan show up, likely sent by a worried Madara who expected her home sooner, and Sakura sets up cremation pits. Hopefully the compromise will suffice, will soothe the tortured souls of those left behind.

Nichitsu’s few living remnants, some of them already showing signs of lingering physical damage from the illness, embrace her before she leaves. Sakura squeezes them back.

“Wait for me,” she says. “I will do everything I can to find out what caused this. And then I will return.”

Candid turns her sharp black eyes upon the village from a bird’s eye view, checking for any last signs of sabotage. The uncanny laughter from the woods vanished the moment Sakura ran from Asirpa’s home, but she is comforted at least by the fact that everyone reported hearing it. At least she can say she’s not losing her shit.

(Can you hear me, Jaybird Girl? There is always laughter to be found, even in the darkest of places. _Especially_ there.)

Sakura and the Uchiha guards make their way back to the compound. Nichitsu is still at last and much of the smell has been eradicated. It will do for now, until Sakura can regroup and spend some time with the samples Candid bottled for her. She gathers up her supplies and leaves as quickly as she came.

* * *

Madara is waiting for her anxiously at the edge of the compound. The burn on her back settles instantly when he makes eye contact with her, though from the outside looking in he remains as emotive as a rock. Sakura’s mate isn’t one to make a scene with lavish displays of romance.

But of course, Sakura knows better than to feel restless about Madara’s simple words and subtle movements. As the Uchiha escort bow and file in, Madara takes one of her hands in two of his, warming her palm with gentle fingers that trace the lines in her skin. He stares into her eyes long enough that the guards at the gate cough and look away. They might as well have been necking like teenagers in front of the gods and everyone.

“I was worried when you did not send word,” he says to her, offering his arm.

Sakura threads her hand through the gap he’s made for her. She fits perfectly at his side.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “It turned out to be far messier than I was prepared for.” She shakes her head. “The whole town, just gone. I managed to convince the survivors to go back. It isn’t the kindest thing, but it’s safer than letting them near any other towns until we can be sure it won’t spread. As it is, we need to keep an eye on the town they went to for shelter.”

“Hikone.”

Sakura nods. “Yes. None of them went inside, but I don’t know how this thing spreads. It’ll be easier to manage if it came from one source, like their well or something. If it came from the jungles and it’s airborne, then I’m _really_ fucked.”

Madara hums as he contemplates this. He leads Sakura to his rooms in the inner compound, helping her to a seat in front of an extravagant tea set. 

(She slips back into her life so easily. Does she think death will never come for her? Does she think death lives in Nichitsu, safe and burned away like fiery stacks of bodies illuminating the night?)

A servant prepares Sakura’s cup and she samples the contents gracefully. The Uchiha have their own traditional tea ceremony that is unique in the Land of Fire. It took her some time to learn all the steps, but Izuna found ways of making it fun. 

The cup she holds is bone china, known for its unassuming strength. Predictably, the Uchiha use bird bones to craft their china; the old woman and her apprentice who make the sets live off the compound as well, within eyesight of Sakura’s research cabin if she squints on a clear day. 

The crows frequently gather at the windows to watch Lady Opere make bone ash out of the crow-bodies. They observe with shining eyes as she mixes the clay slurry while her apprentice paints onto the finished product the Uchiha’s traditionally bright geometric designs. Interestingly, the crows are silent spectators--the Uchiha compound is _never_ quiet, so full of caws and laughing children and the flap of feathers.

But Opere’s cabin is deathly still save for the clack of her tools as she crafts the cups. The birds gather at the windows and in the doorways, standing vigil as their siblings’ bodies become cups and saucers. For as long as the crows have lived among the Uchiha, Izuna’s magpie Itsumade tells her, their bodies have become tea sets. 

“And they’re not bothered by that?” Sakura asked. She’d only been with the Uchiha for six months at the time. “People are using their bodies to have tea parties.”

Itsumade points her long, graceful neck at one of the massive trees shading the domestic areas of the compound. When the wind blows, the tree makes a sound that feels like a thousand chopsticks falling from the table to the floor. At first, Sakura had assumed the tree produced some sort of stiff pod; it _was_ late summer, after all, when the bean trees began making their clattering seeds.

But it isn’t seeds at all. It’s bones, thousands of tiny sun-bleached bones, hung up in the tree with bits of twine. 

“The Uchiha,” Itsumade offered by way of explanation. “When they die, we take a few of their smallest bones and put them in the trees. No one can forget you as long as the wind blows.”

Sakura shuddered then. She contemplates her cup silently now, admiring the hand-painted nutcracker holding a peanut in its beak, and thinks of Blanket listening to his bones in old, forgotten cities.

“Do they take random bones when you die?” Sakura asks Madara. He doesn’t react to the sudden change of topic.

“That depends,” he says. He puts his cup down and holds his hands open in front of his face, studying them like he’s never seen them before. “A few of my ancestors bequeathed specific bones for the trees. My uncle Ekashiba, one of our greatest katon users, wanted only the bones of his hands to be taken, so that people would remember him for his techniques. And of course you’ve seen Great Uncle Sannyoaino’s skull hanging over the back pond. I think he just did that to cause a fuss, to be honest. It’s what he would do.”

Sakura smiles. She remembers Sannyoaino from the scrolls: a doctor like her, he’d taken his skills as a midwife far and wide, refusing payment for his services and making Sakura’s goals all the more attainable through his reputation. 

Demanding his skull adorn the compound for all time, Sakura learned, had been a controversial decision not for the morbidity but for the presumption that anyone wanted to keep looking at his face all day every day for time immemorial. _So forward,_ one of the aunties whispered in her ear on laundry day. _I’d never be so arrogant._

“It is pointless to despair over death,” Madara continues. He lowers his hands to the table, and selects a peach slice from a center dish. “It comes for us all, and we are better for welcoming it and cherishing the memories left behind. I hope that one day my descendants will be able to look upon my bones and gain something worthwhile from them.”

He takes her to bed even though it’s mid afternoon, because he _is_ the clan head and nobody gives a shit besides. As of late the clan hasn’t a care in the world beyond the swiftly dying gossip of Nichitsu’s horrible fate. 

All things will pass. Soon the tragedy will disappear from people’s memories entirely, and the survivors will be allowed to leave after their isolation period ends: another sordid rural tale for the scrolls. Another cautionary story turned legend turned myth by Nichitsu’s children’s children’s children.

(I will make you remember me. I will not let you forget.)

The futons are stored away, but Madara is nothing if not resourceful. The wall works just as well for a flat surface as a bed, and after their time at the hot springs walls have become something of a Thing between them.

She watches him remove her clothes with the daintiness of a surgeon, slowly revealing her body in tiny increments which he lavishes attention on before continuing to unfold her. Into Madara’s ear she drops sultry encouragement; the answering tremble in his hands makes her feel wicked. She still loves to tear this man apart, to lay him low before building him back up again for her pleasure.

But only, of course, because he likes it too.

With arms powerful and sure from hours of training in the sun, Madara hoists Sakura up by the thighs to rest on his forearms, pinning her motionless to the plaster. He keeps his armor on, only removing what is necessary to enter her. It’s what she likes, sometimes, when she wants to be reminded of Madara’s strength. She likes to dominate, yes, but not every time. Their intimacy isn’t predictable or categorized by rigidly assigned roles; there are times Sakura loves to give over her control to Madara for a while, because that too is its own form of power. 

And sometimes she just really likes to pretend to be some anonymous stable girl getting pounded by the hot ronin next door. Life’s short; fuck it.

“Fuck me like you mean it,” she says. And her mate obliges, slamming into her so hard that she presses her head against the flower paper walls and just takes what he gives her. If she wanted him to, he would stop in an instant, but she closes her eyes and leans into the facsimile of helplessness, the knowledge that if he really, _really_ wanted to, he could pin her there regardless of her desire.

It’s windy enough that her cries don’t carry too far, and the only ones around to see her--legs spread, her own wetness dripping down her ass--are the silent ghosts of crows long passed, their glittering bones affixed to chimes laughing at her from the eaves.

Sakura wonders why she hadn’t noticed them when she first arrived. Had they really always been there?

(Because even after the places you’ve been, you’re still foolish enough to think you have the power to beat back the spectre of death, little herbalist, still ignorant of the futility of your work.)

* * *

No one is laughing anymore when they receive word from Konoha two weeks later. 

Lady Mito, in neat lines, describes the deaths of several villagers on the outskirts of town. She wouldn’t normally have bothered the Uchiha Clan with such triviality, she says, but the pattern of the illness and subsequent deaths bore remarkable similarity to Candid’s graphic report on Nichitsu’s fate.

“That’s not good,” Izuna murmurs. He stands alongside his brother and Sakura as the three of them stare grimly down at the parchment, as though if they look long enough they’ll find the answers they so desperately need. Sakura, after a while, takes up the message and returns to her hut with Madara in tow. 

He won’t be able to offer much help for her intended task, but he likes to offer his silent support from the corner. If he does speak, Sakura doesn’t mind; his observations are insightful and provide a much-needed non-medical perspective that challenges her preconceptions of the work.

Sakura sits at her desk, lights a few candles (it isn’t dark, but they smell nice), and answers Mito’s requests for information with everything she can. The samples Sakura brought back from the decimated village were tested to the best of Sakura’s ability using the diagnostic scrolls, but the scrolls are not omniscient. They only know what Sakura knows, and Sakura knows only that she’s never seen a disease quite like this one.

Typhus, malaria, cholera: Sakura graphs her suspicions with neat commentary on what the outbreaks share with these well-known spectres. She encourages Mito to be cautious with the bodies, to take samples of the blood, the bile, and the bones, and to report back with any unique findings. Perhaps Hashirama’s wood release can tease out the mystery somehow.

“Candid, will you bring me the liver? Specimen 12F, please.”

“Of course.” Candid flies into a trapdoor in the floor leading down to Sakura’s cold storage area. The cellar is a safe haven for samples from the wet heat that plagues the Land of Fire this time of year; consequently, she doesn’t have to spend quite as much clan money on paper refrigeration seals from the Yuki Clan.

Specimen 12F is Asirpa’s liver, the least decomposed organ Sakura managed to find and bring back. On the label of the jar she’d written Asirpa’s name, approximate age, and biological characteristics. There is also a sketch of the woman’s face. It makes Sakura feel better, like Asirpa hadn’t been reduced to an object for study. As long as she keeps this sketch, Asirpa will keep on living in some way. A chime of sorts, made of flesh rather than bone.

Weeks earlier, as she knelt on the floor of Asirpa’s home cutting into the sallow skin, Sakura had done a double take at Asirpa’s insides. She’d watched the caretaker die just an hour before her field autopsy and yet Asirpa’s organs resembled those of a days-old corpse. Her kidneys and liver showed evidence of having shut down long before death. And as for the liver in particular…

Back in the present, Sakura gloves up and covers her face before taking the liver out of the preservative and setting it on a new sheet of diagnostic paper. Madara observes from a darkened corner, tilting his head like a curious bird as he watches the process.

“That’s the one?” He asks her. “The one you wrote to Konoha about?”

“Yeah.” She’d gone into great detail describing Asirpa’s liver to Mito. Asirpa’s entire body cavity had been a mess, a story written in blood of a person who’d been little more than a host at the end. Sakura can’t even be sure what type of entity caused the sickness. Her diagnostic papers have ruled out fungus and parasites conclusively, but she can’t figure out how to teach the papers to differentiate between bacteria and viruses. 

All she knows is the story the organs whisper to her--that, and the descriptions helpfully provided by the survivors. They’d seen what Sakura had only glimpsed a bit of, at the end: the bruises all over the skin, the black vomit, the reddened eyes, the hemorrhaging, the bizarre hostility towards any proffered help, the expressionless faces, the hallucinations. Sakura mainly sees the remnants: Asirpa’s liver, discolored and cracked as though an invisible hand had reached in her body and squeezed the life out of it.

Sakura makes a seal with her hands and releases some of her chakra into the paper sheet. The feedback is the same she’d experienced before, with one small alteration. Candid, in a moment of inspiration, had suggested including a seal for detecting traces of foreign chakra. 

It was possible, Candid said, that the disease was not wholly natural in origin. It was possible--only possible--that this disease had been designed and purposefully released into the world: a bioweapon and not the whims of nature. Nichitsu’s tragedy may have only been a testing ground.

The diagnostic scroll lights up with energy, fine green lines from Sakura’s chakra filling in the four corners and reacting with the latent chakra already embedded in the ink. She watches as the scroll does its work. Depending on what she wants to look for, the chakra will singe certain areas marked with specific, biological limiters. 

The characters for “bleeding” and “fever” and “necrosis” grow hot as blackened circles appear around them. Characters for “cancer” and “fungus” and “parasite” remain untouched, as she expects them to. And so on: more circles appear here and there as Sakura waits.

Finally, the last remnants of her chakra fades and the diagnosis is complete. And in the upper right hand corner, the character she’d written for “chakra transmission” is marked with a ring of black. Sakura swears viciously under her breath.

“A weapon for destroying one’s enemies,” Madara says. He rises from his chair and approaches the table, coming no further than the knot in the floorboards Sakura previously identified as his proximity limit. “There are many who would make great use of such a weapon. I have read many stories of warlords who employed such measures in siege warfare. Some of them catapulted clay pots full of bile to kill their enemies through plague. Occasionally their strategies would backfire, killing whole platoons with their own weapons.”

“It doesn’t make sense _here,_ though,” Sakura mutters. She packs Asirpa’s liver back into the jar and hands it off to Candid again, who ferries it down the trapdoor. “This disease is completely uncontrollable. It would make more sense for it to be something less deadly, or less contagious. You could leverage it better that way if you had a cure in hand, and you also wouldn’t have to worry about the disease spreading without your say-so. Why would someone make something that kills over _ninety percent_ of all its victims and spreads like a wildfire? And where is the person responsible for it? Wouldn’t they be letting people know it was them?”

“Perhaps you are looking for sensibility where sensibility is not,” Candid says. She perches atop the kitchen cabinets and surveys the room like a feathery gargoyle. “Not all who wage war are wise or focused. And if their goal is to sow chaos and fear, then their goals have been met, have they not? If their goal is fear or attention and not control, then their plan has worked perfectly.”

Sakura sighs and strips herself of her protective coverings, throwing them into a crate to be burned later. “I wish I knew who could make something like this. Even in my time, I don’t know if such a thing was possible. I still don’t know if I can believe that someone actually _made_ this or intentionally spread it to innocent people just trying to live their lives. It’s senseless.”

(Didn’t you learn already that life is absurd?)

A blue jay--not Cunning, not this time--shrieks just outside Sakura’s window before flying away with a snap of its beak, startling all three occupants of the house. The tension in the air is stifling, and the call only encourages their shared anxiety. There is a catastrophe brewing in the Land of Fire, and all of them know without saying that there are dark days ahead.

(Do not be afraid of the chaos of pestilence and death, my pet. It would be so beautiful to you if you would open your mind to accept it. Let nature run its course. What will come will come. You will toil for nothing in your struggle to fight something more powerful than you will ever be.)

* * *

The Uchiha Clan shuts itself away from the world. Another two weeks after Sakura sends word to Konoha and the temple, the Clan learns about more victims popping up in diverse places. It is likely, Mito scrawls hastily on a scrap of parchment, that Konoha’s initial victims picked up the sickness from the weekly open air market. And the farmers in their stalls must have either brought the sickness in or carried it out, spreading it across the countryside.

More reports come in every day of newly stricken villages, new deaths, new pockets of people huddling terrified out of their minds. Always it’s the same symptoms, the same reports of the crow-dreams and the high-pitched, impish laughter always just out of sight or around the corner. 

The Clan goes dark, guarding their borders with the paranoia of doomsday preppers, turning away anyone with so much as a cough. Sakura and Itsumade the magpie fly to Nichitsu and pick up the survivors; Sakura is confident that they are safe: whatever the hell this thing is, they’d survived it somehow. Perhaps their bodies contain the cure.

Sakura takes samples every day and runs up an enormous tab buying chakra paper for her diagnoses. Madara stations several permanent guards around her hut after she refuses to leave it for the relative safety of the compound, and the guards are busy running off desperate patients every day. Anyone could be dangerous. Everyone is suspect. Reports come in of villagers traveling up and down the river, burning other towns to the ground over rumors and superstition.

(How quickly you turn on one another. Don’t you see why I must cleanse this world? You were sick and dying long before I came.)

Guilt dogs Sakura’s steps as she goes through the motions of research. Nichitsu may have been the first ground zero, but Konoha had absolutely been the locus of metastasization. Konoha: the city _she’d_ helped create, however small her assistance had been. If Konoha had never existed, would the epidemic have spread as far? Or would it have fizzled out after killing off merely a town or two, too quick-killing to sink its roots farther away?

Madara rubs the back of her neck soothingly in bed when she lies awake obsessing over everything she’s ever done that could have made everything worse. She shouldn’t have helped make Konoha. She shouldn’t have sent the villagers back to Nichitsu--had one of them left for the market in Konoha and spread it that way? She should have ordered a full quarantine on every village and town in the Uchiha’s vast territory. She should have found out about the outbreak sooner. She should have invented a way to distinguish viruses from bacteria. She shouldn’t have cremated the bodies at Nichitsu.

As she frets, Madara is there to remind her once again that Sakura can no more change the past than she can control her future. 

“But I can’t just sit around and let this _happen,”_ Sakura snaps. She doesn’t mean to be so acidic, but the stress is getting to her. The other day she’d almost walked out of the bedroom naked after forgetting to put clothes on for the day.

“Appreciating your lack of control does not necessitate passivity,” Madara soothes her. “I will not allow the tide to carry me away simply because I cannot control the rhythms of the ocean. I will learn its limits and walk inland, out of its reach. If an invading army came to my door, I would not throw down my weapon simply because I could not control my opponent’s decision to attack. Acknowledging that life holds no promises _is_ a relinquishment of control. But only in part. I think it may be helpful for you to consider such a perspective. If there is one thing to hold onto that the First One taught you, it is this: lack of control should motivate you to work smarter, not drive you to isolation and despair as it did for Nimble.”

(Haven’t seen her in a while. She never writes, never calls. Ungrateful.)

Sakura thinks of the sinewy form of Nimble, coiled in the darkness of her cave forever static, disillusioned and misanthropic. And she thinks of Cunning, who encouraged her to fight for happiness, for stability, for a future worth living in. Not only for herself, but also for the sake of others. 

She will fight tooth and claw to put an end to this madness. Even if she cannot put a lid on the chaos or fix her past mistakes, she won’t sit idly by while some monster wages war against the world she loves so dearly.

She cannot name her adversary, but Sakura knows this: diseases are living things that can be killed, and the ones that aren’t alive are constructs that can be destroyed. Sakura is not afraid of chaos or death, or even laughter. There is something out there in the jungle, something cruel that cackled at her attempts to save the caretaker, haunting the land with visions and playful sadism. And that, Sakura thinks, is where it _fucked up._

Because if it laughs, it too is a living thing that can be hunted down and killed for good. 

_I’ve got you now, bitch._

* * *

Blanket arrives the next morning. Unlike Cunning’s visits, which are awkward, vaguely worshipful affairs, Blanket’s landing is met with confusion. Most people aren’t sure who he even is, and even the knowledgeable clan members are too distracted by the way Blanket perches on nothing midair to greet him with a respectful bow.

Blanket, predictably, does not give a shit about any of that. As far as Sakura knows, he cares about three things: listening to bone-stories; burying remains in decrepit, abandoned cities; ...and her. For some reason. At least, she’s pretty sure. Blanket isn’t the most _emotive_ being in the world, and it had taken Sakura a whole year to believe that Blanket actually enjoyed her company and wasn’t tolerating her visits for some unknown purpose. 

Ignoring the Uchihas’ half-hearted salutations, he floats in a straight line directly into the main house (passing through a few walls--no big deal) where Sakura is enjoying a private breakfast with Madara. Both of them blink stupidly at the nutcracker for several seconds before scrambling to offer him something to eat.

“No,” Blanket says in his friendly monotone. “I Have Not Come For Breakfast. The Timing Of My Arrival Is, In Fact, Irrelevant To The Nature Of My Errand.”

“Oh,” Sakura says, her hand halfway reaching for a plate of pastries. “Are you here for something in particular, then, or is this just a friendly visit? Sorry I couldn’t make it for our last monthly appointment. I’ve been...somewhat occupied with burials of a different sort.”

“Ah. Yes. About That.” Blanket hovers to a nearby mirror and begins preening his feathers. Down falls gently to the floor, vanishing into showers of sparks as soon as each tuft touches the surface of the floor. “I Have Seen This Sickness Before. Something Very Much Like It, Anyway. The Bones Were Muttering About It Quite Vivaciously This Past Week.”

Sakura’s blood runs cold. She exchanges a quick glance with Madara.

“Do you mean--are you talking about the epidemic? _The_ epidemic? The one that’s going on now? The sickness that killed the people in Nichitsu? Is that what you mean?”

“Yes. That. Clever Approached Me For The First Time In Centuries To Tell Me Of The Current Events. They Are Quite Obsessed With Plagues, As I Am Sure You Are Well Aware. Some Would Say...Disturbingly So. Please Forgive My Gossip. It Is Not Kind To Spread Tales.”

“My Lord,” Madara interrupts respectfully--you sort of had to, to keep Blanket focused on the topic at hand; Blanket’s thoughts meander so much that sometimes the ends of his sentences didn’t match up with the beginnings. “Are the bones telling you that they’ve seen this illness before? _This_ particular illness?”

“Oh. Yes. Forgive Me. After Clever Departed, I Told The Bones About The Conversation So As Not To Be Disrespectful. It Is Not Nice To Have Private Conversations In Front Of Non-Participants. And The Bones Told Me That After The Great War, After The Explosions Had Died Down, That People In A Certain Part Of The City Began To Get Sick and Die Quickly With Great Violence. There Was The Voiding of Black Fluids, The Bleeding, The Silly Behavior. All Of The Same Signs. With Three Differences Which You May Find Meaningful: No Battered Bones. No Dreams Of Crows. And No Laughing.”

Blanket, who had been looking at Sakura with one beady eye, suddenly looks away, out into the garden. Sakura squints at him. Blanket appears almost...coy?

“Those last three things might be more related to the chakra-directed nature of the disease,” Sakura says, her mind churning with wild thoughts. “I’ve been thinking that might be the case for a while. It’s not normal for a disease with this profile to also attack the bones like that. It just doesn’t fit. I’m thinking that the dreams and the laughing thing are related as well. Those might be trademarks or signatures of some sort left by whoever is spreading this.”

“Lord Blanket,” Candid says from her perch in the corner, “if the bones can tell us which part of the city the disease came from, perhaps there are clues still to be found there. We must not waste time while people are withering away.”

Blanket preens his chest roughly, something Sakura had seen other crows do when embarrassed. 

“Of Course. You Are Correct. As It Happens, The Bones Have Told Me An Exact Building That They Believe The Disease Crawled Out Of. There Is A Special Room Within. I Can Take You There Right Away.”

Sakura holds her arm out to Candid, who flies across the room to land on Sakura’s shoulder. Behind her, Sakura can hear Madara fetching two pairs of shoes and her field kit.

(I can see why she likes you so much. There’s something inside both of you that drives you forward, makes you fight against the snare. But don’t forget how snares work, my love: the more you fight, the worse your death will be.)

“I’m ready,” Sakura says. “Take us there now.” 

* * *

Is the blue jay still a villain?

Outlawed by all bird tribunals,

As a wretch disguised, [she's] branded,

Shunned by every feathered creature;

Yet [she] prospers, man admires [her]. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> KOMMENT.
> 
> 1\. Who do you think is behind this?  
> 2\. Who was laughing in the woods?  
> 3\. Tell me your thoughts on bones.  
> 4\. Mito should have been Hokage in canon. Discuss.


	3. i remember you, but i don’t want to

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sakura explores a hot lab, Candid learns to read, and we all appreciate the importance of hand-washing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think an abandoned hot lab is probably one of the scariest things to do some post-apocalyptic urban exploring in

Through the tedious months of winter

Round the com-barn's step [she] lingers,

Boldly down among the poultry

Comes [she] to secure their kernels;

Through the barb'ries, through the cedars,

Prowls [she] searching for their berries,

In the spruces, in the hemlocks,

Cocoons from the bark detaching.

* * *

Blanket transports the three of them to an abandoned city. It looks much like all the others, so Sakura isn’t sure where on earth they are. A lot of these places look the same after a while. The same dusty restaurants, the same broken windows, the same bones littering the ground alone and in little piles. The same distant whispers of sound from the animals who have come to reclaim the land.

Blanket hovers through the air, leading Madara, Sakura, and Candid to a tall building. Inside there is some sort of reception area, and although Sakura can’t read any of the words or characters on the signs it’s clear to her that this is a medical facility of some sort: there are wheelchairs and IV bags and other items strewn about the place as though the final occupants were in a great hurry.

(They weren’t fast enough to escape me.)

“This Was A Place Where People Sought Help For Ailments,” Blanket says. “But When I Began To Take Up The Bones Here, Some Of Them Had Interesting Stories To Tell. There Is A Place Here, Deep Underground, Where People Studied Disease In Secret. Only The Highest Ranking People In This Place Knew.”

“A diagnostic lab, maybe? Or a research lab.” Sakura picks her way carefully through the mess to look behind the desk. There’s an empty teacup there full of dust. Sakura wonders if this person had been enjoying their tea before the world started ending right around them. 

Sometimes it’s the little things that she finds in these cities that get to her. Not the bones or the broken things but the items arranged just so, telling stories without words of the people who’d last touched them. The person who made this tea was real and living once, and they took their tea with sugar and maybe cream. 

“I Would Not Know The Difference. The Bones Were Rather More Concerned With What Happened When The Facility Became Compromised. Survivors Of The War Came Here For Assistance And Were Killed By An Invisible Enemy That Crept Up From Below. Directly Below This Room, As A Matter Of Fact. The Bones Speak Incessantly Of This And Little Else. If You Desire More Answers, You Must Find Them On Your Own.”

“Fair enough,” Sakura says. She looks over at Candid who’s hitched a ride on Madara’s head. The effect is inappropriately comical given the circumstances but Sakura can’t quite hide the smile on her face. “It’s going to be difficult to figure anything out since I can’t read any of this stuff, but surely I’ll come across something familiar down there.”

“Oh. That Reminds Me.”

Blanket unfolds a single spotted wing and delicately removes a lesser covert feather. He hovers over to Candid who accepts the feather in her beak.

“I Learn Languages Very Easily,” Blanket says. “It Is A Gift I Developed Over The Centuries. Stories Are Much Nicer When You Understand Them. You May Borrow This Gift For A While.” He plucks out a downy puff from his chest feathers. “And Here Is Your Way Home, When You Desire To Leave. Goodbye.”

(I’m the one who gave it to him in the first place. Of course he doesn’t remember. He wanted to forget me, too.)

He dissolves in the air like a tree disturbed after a forest fire, and then he is gone.

“What,” Sakura says, “the  _ hell _ is he talking about.”

“I believe,” Candid mutters through a beak full of (magical?) feather, “that Lord Blanket is letting us borrow his ability to translate foreign writing. As long as I keep this feather, we should be able to read whatever we find here. I’m already starting to figure out some of these signs. That one over there says “surgery.””

“Just when I think he can’t get any weirder,” Sakura sighs. “This is like the satchel, isn’t it? We shouldn’t think about it too hard.”

“That is for the best.”

“Shall we move on?” Madara says. “We need to find a way below. If it’s truly as secret as Lord Blanket describes, we may have some trouble with that.”

Sakura grins, all feral and excitement. She raises a fist full of chakra. “Why look for a way down when you can  _ make _ one?”

* * *

Luckily the facility they’re looking for isn’t one story below reception, or else their errand might have ended before it even began. But after everyone stops coughing and picking bits of rubble away, Candid points out another sign on the wall, the arrow upon it pointing in a 90-degree angle towards a stairwell.

“Hot Labs,” Candid says. Words from a small, unassuming sign next to the door.  


“What does that mean? Like, they’re hot inside?”

“I do not know, Lady Sakura. But perhaps it is our best option for now. We are looking for a laboratory, are we not?”

“Makes sense to me.”

Madara calls up a little flame in his hand so that they can see; after the first turn in the stairs the path below gets dark enough to be dangerous. At the bottom of the staircase is another reception area--much smaller than the one above--a set of bathrooms to the left, and a single, important-looking door on the right.

(I remember this place. They thought they could contain me here. They thought I could be controlled. Pointless. Foolish.)

It leads to an area with lockers. Some of them still have items inside. Against one wall is a container full of scrubs; above the container is a poster with instructions. Candid reads them slowly, picking the words apart as she goes and occasionally backtracking for corrections.

“Level one,” she reads. “Remove all clothing...including underwear before putting on the clean...sterile...suit. Scrub suit.”

“Hmm. So there must be a process for going in deeper,” Sakura remarks. She peeks through the window of the next door leading to another small room. When they walk through they notice strangely colored light fixtures, but everything is dark and silent. One corner of the room holds a utilitarian shower and a bin of white socks.

“This room is for killing things,” Candid says.

Madara looks around somewhat alarmed.

“Killing the diseases, maybe, if this is the lab where they studied them. Maybe there was something in the air that cleaned it before they left.”

(It was a good trick. I’ll give them that one.)

“Do you suppose it’s still working?” Madara holds his fire closer to the ceiling, taking another look at the strange lights.

“My guess is no,” Sakura says. She picks up a pair of socks, examines them--just some perfectly normal socks--and drops them back in the bin. “But after this long, there’s no way there are still living diseases down there. Diseases need food to live--some of them, sort of--so unless we find a colony of mole people descended from the researchers, it’s unlikely we’re in any real danger.”

“I hope you’re right.”

The third room--“Level 3,” Candid announces--is the strangest yet. It looks like the remnants of a particularly successful yard sale: there’s a telephone on a table, another table covered in white powder and rolls of tape, a waxy cardboard box with a pointed flower printed on the side, some yellow hoses hanging from one of the walls, and an antechamber of large, helmeted coveralls hanging up. All of them have names printed on, Candid says, but other than that there’s no indication what they’re for.

“Protection, maybe,” Madara says.

“They must have been working with some crazy shit to need all this covering up. Now I’m worried about having all those samples in my cabin. All I had on were some disposable gloves.” Sakura considers panicking about this but ultimately decides against it. She puts those feelings into a box for later perusal. This is not the time or place to have an emotional crisis.

It’s the sort of advice Sakura gives to herself in times like this, where all she wants to do is go apeshit and run away screaming. Times where she feels small and trapped, or almost trapped, or at the precipice of some impending doom. She's thinking back to a couple days earlier when she’d stupidly handled organs ravaged by the most horrible disease she’d ever heard of. And Sakura would really rather _not_ be thinking about that right at this moment. It won't help her now, and it won't help her past self either.  


(Are you afraid, jaybird girl? Are you regretting how quickly you replaced your self-loathing with unearned arrogance?)

Someone should have given themselves that advice in this room, Sakura thinks. Parts of the floor are covered in scrubs and suits, gloves and boots, tape still clinging to some of them like the owners had torn them from their bodies in a panic before running back into Level 2.

Level 4, beyond the final door, leads into a labyrinth of other doors leading to other rooms. Some of them are full of cages holding the bones of non-human creatures. Some scream “laboratory” even though Sakura can’t identify even half of the devices within. 

There are things that look like the primitive computers she remembers from Konoha, but these are sleeker with wider and flatter screens. The walls are all covered in a shiny, translucent paste and every wall socket is sealed around the edges with what looks like clay. Madara looks around with cautious interest. He’s never seen anything like this in his life, Sakura thinks.

(And neither have you.) 

“Where to now?” Sakura asks Candid. The little bird flies down from Madara’s head to hop on the ground, her cheerful motions at odds with the tense, stressful atmosphere surrounding the party. Madara enlarges the fire to help Candid see.

Candid isn’t sure. “There are laboratories,” she says, “and storage rooms and rooms for holding animals. But there isn’t anything helpful.”

(Must I do the work for you?)

“It’s probably too much to ask for a The Answers Are in Here room,” Sakura says. She walks forward and stops at one of the doors, peeking inside. Madara’s fire illuminates a bit of the room, particularly a table containing a computer and a vertically arranged tubular...contraption of some sort.

“I’m going to go in here and look at this,” Sakura says. When she steps in the room Madara and Candid quickly follow, and that’s when Sakura begins to sense eyes on her back. A glance backwards reveals neither Madara nor Candid feeling the same; they peer curiously around the room--no stiffness, no darting looks from corner to corner trying to find the interloper. The hairs on the back of Sakura’s neck stand up and goosebumps press out from the skin of her arms.

The sensation

(i see you)

grows more intense the closer she gets to the strange mechanical contraption, which only strengthens Sakura’s resolve. If she’s right and someone intentionally made this disease, something with the power to create such a thing in the first place, then maybe they’re the one watching. Maybe they don’t want her to find out what’s in this room, or what this object could help her uncover.

But when she touches the contraption, a strange intermixture of plastic and metal ending in a squat little container, the sensation vanishes so abruptly that Sakura gasps. She feels like a deer that, upon whipping its head around at the sound of a snapping twig, finds nothing there. It’s worse than if she’d seen the source of the sound. It’s the state of not knowing that terrifies her the most. 

“It’s a microscope,” Candid says. She hops to the table and reads some tiny print stamped into a square sheet of metal bent around the widest part of the tube. “A certain kind of tube.” Candid says another word, but Sakura’s never heard it before. It tickles a part of her brain that says  _ familiar, _ but when she walks along that trail of thought there’s nothing to find at the end.

“Can you say it again, Candid?”

Candid says the word again. Nothing. Sakura hears a rattling in the distance, echoes seeping into the room from the dark hallway. Chitterings from a bone chime.

“Not this shit again,” she growls. She ignores the sound, and the strange look Madara gives her, and examines the setup more closely. There’s a hum coming from the room that could indicate this part of the building has power, perhaps coming in from a separate generator unaffected by whatever grid the lights were connected to. 

A button on the side of the microscope produces a low glow when Sakura flicks it on, and she rests her face against the eyepieces that she doesn’t know how she missed earlier. It is indeed a microscope, because now Sakura can see what the last person had placed in the squat container below the tube. It’s a slide, much like the ones she’d seen Shizune prepare for Sakura’s lessons, and on it someone has placed cells of some sort. Only they’re much larger than what Sakura has ever seen before, and stunningly crisp.

(Aren’t they beautiful? Some of my finest creations.)

“It’s amazing,” Sakura breathes. She steps aside to let Madara look. “It’s closer than I’ve ever been before. I wonder what I’d see if I brought some samples here. If I could just figure out how to work this thing...I don’t know how to make the pictures bigger or smaller. There’s a hell of a lot more buttons on this thing and with my luck I’d activate a self-destruct sequence.”

“Do microscopes contain measures for self-destruction?” Madara steps away from the microscope, the images on the slide having not impacted his life in any noticeable way. Sakura wants to shake him until he’s just as excited as she is, but then she remembers the very long conversations Madara likes to have with her about swords, and how sometimes it’s okay for your partner to nod along in silent support if not comprehending, and holds herself back.

“Let’s go,” she says. “Maybe we’ll find something else while we’re here. At the very least I know this thing exists and I can come back to use it later once I have better samples.”

The eyes begin watching her as they leave the room and head back down the long, dark hallway into the strange sequential rooms. Just as before, the feeling grows more and more intense until Madara lays a hand on her arm and asks if she’s all right. Sakura presses her lips together and shakes her head, afraid that if she stops to think about it that she’ll start screaming. She doesn’t know why, but she knows deep in her bones that stopping here would be a mistake, one she might never come back from. She  _ must _ keep moving.

It’s in the smaller reception room that the feeling is most intense, far more intense than what she’d experienced in the microscope room. The watcher must be somewhere nearby, she thinks, her inner voice coming out high and tinny, right? They’re in here somewhere. 

The bones rattle, the sound coming from the bathrooms. From the hallways. From the drawers on the desk. Sakura remembers the protective layers in the last room, the way they’d been nearly torn from the speed with which they’d been removed, and begins to understand what would drive a person to such violence. Trapped animals would rather gnaw off their own limbs to escape rather than give up, if they couldn’t run.

“Were those there before?”

Madara points to the center of the reception room, to a neat pile of books on the floor. There are three of them, textbook sized, their spines and covers aligned perfectly, one on top of the other. Sakura  _ knows _ they were not here before. 

(Consider them a gift.)

“We have to leave this place,” Sakura chokes out. She runs forward, shoves the textbooks into Blanket’s satchel, and takes the stairs two and three at a time, all the way back up to the top. She can feel the watching follow her, gaining on her as she runs and ignores the startled shouts from her traveling companions. 

It’s only when she steps out into the sun again, streaming into the ground floor from jagged window panes, that everything stops again. The ground rises up to meet her and Sakura collapses as gracefully as she can, waiting in a fetal position for what feels like hours until Madara and Candid find her there. 

* * *

Blanket’s feather takes them back to the edge of Uchiha territory, where Sakura sits back on the ground until her breathing comes back under control.

“Eyes.” It’s all she can say to Madara’s questions. Candid watches with unruffled tranquility until Sakura is able to stand on her own again.

They return to the compound to the worst possible news: one of the border guards has fallen ill and his symptoms match up identically to what people have started calling Nichitsu fever. Sakura takes a moment to despair, puts it away with the rest of the feelings she doesn’t have time for, and then barricades herself in the Uchiha library with Candid to start poring over the books. 

Madara sends a crow to Konoha with a message for Mito, updating her on their visit to the abandoned city and what they found there. At this point, Sakura knows that Mito is the best person to manage the disease from an infrastructural level. She has the visibility, the power, and the medical knowledge to handle things at a large scale. 

Sakura’s time is better spent hunkering down and out of the way; she plans to spend her every waking moment on research, updating Mito on the findings when she can. Disease management isn’t a task for one person, after all. Many people will play their parts in the days and weeks to come, and Sakura is but one piece in the larger puzzle.

(There’s that humility again. It’s about time. Knowing your place will make you happy like nothing else ever will.)

Izuna and Madara make sure she eats and sleeps. The servants set up a little nest for her on the floor so that she wastes as little time as possible tending to her biological needs. Candid barely talks Sakura out of peeing in a bucket so as not to waste time walking all the way to the lavatory.

“I don’t imagine three minutes will make much of a difference,” Izuna says as he watches Sakura scarf down a rice ball.

One of the textbooks is about viruses. Of course. At least the creepy stalker from the labs is a helpful one. The contents are fascinating if a bit dry, and so Sakura has difficulty skimming over the irrelevant entries (with Candid’s help) to find  _ only _ what she’s looking for. All she wants to do is read this thing cover to cover and torment Madara with long-winded summaries about genetic material and the wonders of replication.

“This looks familiar,” Candid says. She pecks a set of pages: on one side is a heading and a set of descriptions, and on the other side is a photograph that reminds Sakura of what she’d seen under the microscope in the hot lab.

“It’s talking about a certain kind of virus,” Candid continues. “It comes from animals.”

“What kind?”

(Me.)

“Different kinds. The illnesses they cause in humans are similar to what we’ve seen. The bleeding, the organs dying, the fevers, the listlessness, the high fatality rate, the rapid spread. Nothing about bruised bones or hallucinations, but as you said before those may be the markers of chakra manipulation.”

(Correct.)

Sakura decides  _ not _ to mention that she’s been seeing and hearing some strange things lately. It’s probably the stress. She fans out a few of the pages in this particular section and compares the photos by flipping back and forth. The images, taken by what Candid says is an “electronic microscope” are photographs of the viruses being described.

“I wonder if that’s what was in the basement. A microscope that’s so powerful it needs power to work. The name is kind of similar, too.”

“I was thinking the same thing. It would be well worth our time to return there with some samples and compare them to these photographs. Even if nothing matches up perfectly, it could offer some suggestions for treatment or the best methods of body disposal. Perhaps it describes strategies that Lady Hokage will find helpful; how to properly quarantine for this sort of crisis.”

“And how to dress,” Sakura mutters. Some of the pages contain images of health care workers tending to the dying and the dead. They’re all wearing the same sort of full covering she saw in the changing rooms. Again she thinks of the days she spent handling the bodies in Nichitsu, and of Asirpa’s organs in the root cellar of her house. Suitless. Barely gloved.

(It will come for you as it has for everyone else. You are not different from the others. You may as well let it in.)

She turns back to the first page, the one with the biggest image of the virus. It’s long and thin, like a soba noodle, with one end curled up like a cat’s tail.

* * *

It isn’t long before Sakura has to set aside a precious few hours of research to help control local spread of the disease. She barely has time to send messages to Mito these days as her focus becomes a balance between note taking, testing, and helping more and more victims as time goes by. 

No one in the Uchiha Clan proper has taken ill yet--it’s just the vassal clans and the civilians--but Sakura leaves when she can, donning her version of a clean suit made by the tailor who’d created her backless attire.

The situation is becoming increasingly desperate. Not only does the disease spread rapidly on its own, but traditional methods of burial--once a time for reflection and meditation on one’s own mortality--now must be tossed aside in favor of what is safe: immediate internment. No cremation. No washing of the body by family members. No touching at all if possible. 

Some villagers begin to resent the local medics arriving to help by order of the Uchiha--medics Sakura trained. The villagers are going through the worst tragedy of their lives and here come some meddlesome shinobi telling them that their centuries-old rituals are dangerous. They’d buried plague victims in the past, the villagers say. The villagers grow ill and die. Some of the field medics grow ill and die. Everyone is afraid. Everyone hears laughter in the trees and the clatter of bones cascading upon bones.

Sakura has better luck when she assists personally. It isn’t a difference in skill, unfortunately. If that was it, Sakura would feel better; skills are things that can be taught. What isn’t teachable is reputation. People don’t want her presence for its own sake or for her knowledge. They want her there because of the bird on her back and what they think it means. 

She walks through villages surrounded by people who want to touch the mark, which she does not allow. Her aloofness only makes them want her more.

“It shouldn’t be like this,” she says to Candid. “I was happier when people didn’t care who I was and I had no reputation. I’d finally started feeling comfortable being just another person. I wasn’t trying to prove anything to anyone, even to myself. I don’t even deserve the praise they’re giving me. It isn’t even  _ about _ me. And it’ll only hurt them in the end. They’re reading into all the wrong things.”

(So much for the meaninglessness of your suffering, I suppose.)

“But it is like this,” Candid says. “There is nothing for it but to press onward. We will make do with what we have and what we can fight for. We will force the stones from the earth for planting, even if we have to do the same year after year. So it must be.”

Bone chimes like the ones Sakura hangs from her eaves begin appearing in the villages that she’s helped. When the wind comes in from over the plains, they sing.

* * *

But so soon as in the Maytime

Eggs are laid and young are hatching,

Berries, buds, and worms rejecting,

Turns this scourge to sweeter morsels;

Woe awaits the early songster

Whose uncovered nest [she] chances

To discover as [she's] sneaking

Through the forest seeking plunder; 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maybe you're wondering what the Naruto post-apocalyptic conspiracy theory tag is about. Here is an explanation: so Naruto, as a show and narrative universe, is...not well made. I definitely appreciate the merits of ignoring certain discrepancies in fiction; like, nobody should be reading or watching things with the sort of obnoxious self-importance employed by people like the CinemaSins dude, right? Sometimes things don't need to be explained. "What was the substance on the spinning wheel which caused Sleeping Beauty to go to sleep? What were its chemical components?" is not a set of questions anyone needs to ask. Answer: it's magic, shaddap. Quit sucking the joy out of your own media experience. 
> 
> But the worldbuilding discrepancies in Naruto are sometimes the dumbest things. They're so dumb they're distracting. Like how the fuck they got cell phones and selfie culture by the time Nart got married to Shy Boob Lady but they had crude radios (meaning frequencies are being maintained for wireless communication by...someone) during the first Akatsuki arc? Did y'all put up some cell tower infrastructure or some satellites or some shit? It feels a lot less like "oh, don't worry about it" and more "wow this author and his corporate owners do not give a shit about consistency; this is about raking in the cash." And like, okay. It's eye roll worthy but not like, a Sin. I WISH I could give no shits like Kishimoto and be that rich. 
> 
> And yet my imagination wants to keep going. Where DID those abandoned cities come from? There is evidence that a technologically advanced civilization once existed (in one of the shitty side novels, Gaara runs past an area in the desert that was a dumping ground for advanced laptop tech???) and was then wiped out in some way, leaving the survivors to make due with the leftovers. That would explain, in part, some of the technological non sequiturs, if we are attempting to make sense of a coherent universe. 
> 
> So here's my crackpot theory: the Naruto world was skullfucked by a global nuclear war that destroyed much of the infrastructure and blasted civilization back to a pre-modern age. Gradually people began to redevelop certain technologies and slowly rebuild stuff like power grids and shit. The nuclear fallout gave people weird ninja powers. I'm not even going to go into my southwestern America location theory because it's based on cactus distribution and I know 1000% that when Kishimoto built Suna he was like "uhhhhh it's kinda like Egypt, right? Egypt is desert?" and then he read the Wikipedia page for desert biomes and cactuses while high, made Suna fashion culture look like an ancient Egyptian cosplay he saw once a decade ago, and called it a day. 
> 
> Your only comment prompt, if you would like one, is this:
> 
> 1\. What the FUCK am I talking about?
> 
> Please take the time to comment if you're reading! I appreciate your support and one of the best ways to encourage authors to write more is to engage with them.
> 
> PS this is what an electron microscope looks like:  
> 


	4. where is the village that raised us, sister

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sakura plots to kill a bitch, Clever breaks time, and Cunning makes a reappearance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Combating an epidemic is hard when your medical mentor was all about poisons and mayhem and everything you learned about disease containment is from an open-book test you took at age 13

Wise the nuthatch and the titmouse

Wise the bluebird and the downy,

To conceal their nests in tree-trunks

Where this monster cannot find them;

Ask the vireo what happens,

Ask the junco where her eggs are,

Ask the thrush and ask the robin

What assassin slew their young ones.

* * *

Sakura sends for Madara and Izuna to discuss her findings two weeks later.

“So I managed to find out how diseases like this one work. We still haven’t confirmed what we’re looking at on the microscopic level, but we’ve skimmed through all these books enough to know what matches up. It’s just too similar  _ not _ to be.”

“But is that enough to go on?” Izuna looks down at the table Sakura has decided is  _ her _ table for the duration of the research. It’s covered in books and scrolls and paper with sketches and notes written on them in her untidy hand.

“It’s enough to start experimenting with treatments, at least.”

“There’s a cure?” Madara picks up the closest paper, a chart where Sakura is comparing symptoms and autopsy results with the named viruses using a process of elimination.

“Unfortunately, no. If what we’re seeing is like these other hemorrhagic fevers, there aren’t really cures so much as there are life-sustaining treatments. And even those don’t always produce results. It’s like with cholera. It’s the massive dehydration that kills you fastest. Sometimes you just have to keep shoving water in to try and keep up as best you can.”

“And is there an equivalent for this? What are they calling it now, brother--Deepwater Fever?”

“That’s right,” Sakura says. For a while people were just naming it out of the closest area where they knew it was from. But now that it’s all over the Land of Fire it’s taken on a different common name. I suppose that’s helpful at least for communication’s sake.”

“So then what  _ are _ the treatments?” Izuna stares at the pile of textbooks Sakura brought back from the labs. Each contains a metric ton of bookmarks with notes she’s made to herself.

(You work so hard against the inevitable. What is the point? What is is what must be.)

“Here’s the thing,” Sakura says. “Even if we  _ did _ manage to pin this down and determine exactly what it is, there’s no way to combat the biological side of things better than what we’re doing now. Mito has been setting up checkpoints and quarantine districts as well as training people to give fluids and provide supportive care. That’s helped immensely. But anything more complicated than that is out of our hands. A few of the similar diseases described in the book  _ do _ have treatments that increase survival rates, but they all require things we don’t have and that we can’t have.”

“Is it a matter of money?” Madara asks.

“It’s a matter of where this timeline is in terms of medical advancement. To be honest with you, I don’t even think the Konoha Hospital of  _ my _ time would be able to treat the victims effectively. The treatments the books describe assume we have fully staffed vaccine and virology labs and a bunch of other things I don’t even know the name of. I can’t even properly  _ look _ at this thing because my microscope is too weak. I can’t figure out how to get the one in the hot lab to work for me. It’s not like anybody left a manual lying around, you know? I could figure it out eventually, but we don’t have time for that crap.” 

“Then what can we do?” Izuna sets his elbows on the table, resting his head in his hands. His eyebrows are furrowed with determination. Having gone through his own horrific illness, he feels particularly driven to help where he can.

“There’s two things I want to focus on,” Sakura says. “I already forwarded my plan to Mito and she thinks it’s a good place to start. First, I want to see if there’s any other possible way to look at this thing. Microscopes are out, but maybe there’s someone with a bloodline ability who can see it and describe the thing. That won’t keep people from dying now, but it’ll be important later if it pops up again. We already tried everybody’s Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan who has them, and nobody’s special Thing is to look at tiny stuff. That’s out. But there’s got to be something. The crows could help search for someone.”

“A good idea.”

“Thank you, Izuna. And second, as everyone else is handling the quarantining and medical treatment, that leaves me the time and energy to attack the chakra manipulation. This virus has a biological impact but it’s being driven by chakra. I think. Ninety-nine percent sure.” 

(Oh, here she comes to show her face at last.)

“Meaning it’s being done by a person or persons who can be tracked down and stopped.” Madara leans back a bit, his eyes glazing over in thought. “Of course.” 

“That won’t magically cure everyone, I’m guessing,” Sakura rushes to add. “But it’ll keep more outbreaks from happening. Maybe.”

Madara looks grim. “It will be dangerous for you to leave the compound to travel,” he says, “but I agree with your assessment.” He places a hand over Sakura’s and she squeezes it in response. “I would be happy to give you any resources I can spare.”

“About the virus itself,” Izuna says. “In terms of looking at it, what are you hoping to see?”

Sakura opens the book to the page she’d seen before. She taps the photo with a fingernail. Both men lean in for a better look.

“See this shape? It’s all twisted at the end of a thread. There are categories of viruses just like there are categories of any other pathogen. And a lot of them share visual similarities. It would help, I think, to physically look at it to see if it’s similar to the ones in the book. If they match up visually  _ and _ descriptively, we’re onto something. Also, if there’s something really unusual about it--maybe the chakra component makes it look or move differently--I want to know that, too.”

“So why doesn’t your microscope work?” 

“It does work. I can see lots of bacteria, for example, and parasites. The issue is really simple: magnification. Viruses are small as hell. We’d need someone to magnify a sample enough times to see something you can fit a gazillion of on the head of a pin. No one can do that.”

“Clever can,” says Cunning from the windowsill.

Sakura shrieks. Izuna spits out his tea. Madara just shakes his head and glares at the ceiling.

“Yeah, I know it’s been a while. Pour me some of what you spit out; I’m fuckin’ thirsty.”

(This will be interesting.) 

* * *

Clever can do many things. Some of them are more creepy than useful. But their most useful ability to date is changing the size of things. They mostly use it to change the size of their body, because Clever is, above all else, quite a self-absorbed raven.

But Clever also likes to be where the action is, and so they accept Cunning’s request to meet at Sakura’s little hut for what promises to be a most exciting evening.

I AM NOT ACCUSTOMED TO USING MY POWERS FOR TRIVIALITIES, Clever says solemnly. DISEASE AND DECAY ARE PART OF THE NATURAL ORDER OF THINGS. TO LOWER MYSELF TO THE TASK OF MAGNIFYING GLASS IS NOT ONLY INAPPROPRIATE BUT HUMILIATING.

“Oh, get over yourself,” Cunning says. She perches on Clever’s head and rips out a few pitch-black feathers. “You helped Sakura before. With a much smaller outbreak, if I recall correctly.”

YOU DO RECALL CORRECTLY, Clever admits. They puff all of their feathers out and then flatten them. It’s a bird version of a shrug. FINE.

“All right,” Sakura says. She takes one of her samples and puts it on the microscope. “Try this.”

Clever tilts their head and stares at the microscope; Sakura assumes they’re doing some sort of calculation in their head to figure out what happens next. But after a full sixty seconds of awkward silence, Clever rights their head again and says, THERE. I AM FINISHED.

Sakura blinks. “But--but you didn’t--where’s the--?”

WHAT. WHERE IS THE WHAT.

“I dunno, I thought you were going to, like, make the sample bigger or make it look bigger. Like a--a slide on a projector screen.”

I DO NOT KNOW WHAT THAT IS OR WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT.

“Okay. Okay.” Sakura walks around the table and grabs a sheet of paper, smoothing it out on the table where Clever can reach it. The raven is at their usual size--or, the size they usually wear around Sakura--so even though the table is high it should suffice.

If Clever can’t make Sakura see it, maybe Clever can draw what  _ they _ see. And hopefully, it’ll be something worth looking at. There must be millions and millions of  _ things _ in the form of particles in that sample alone. How is Clever, who does not know what they’re looking for, going to find the right thing if Sakura herself barely knows where or what it is? As she searches around for something Clever can write with, Sakura continues talking over her shoulder.

“What happens when you do that, Clever? I can’t see anything different. What are you looking at, exactly?”

I MADE A PIECE OF MYSELF VERY SMALL AND HAD A LOOK AROUND, Clever says. 

“Was it smelly?” Cunning asks. Ruining a serious mood is one of her favorite pastimes, as always.

I AM NOT ANSWERING THAT SILLY QUESTION.

Sakura finds a piece of charcoal and attaches it to a stick with some twine. She hands the device over to Clever who accepts it in their beak. After arranging some items on the table, Sakura props up the book on viruses to the page she’s looking for.

“It might take some time,” Sakura says, “but it would be helpful if you could, uh, make yourself small again and try to find some of these things. We’ll start with the one I think it is and if there’s no matches, we’ll try other things or other samples. It’s worth a shot. It might tell us how to find the origin of the chakra component.”

I SEE, Clever says. They lower their enormous head to get a closer look at the textbook. THEN I WILL LOOK AGAIN. I MAY HAVE TO BEND TIME A LITTLE BIT TO BE EFFICIENT. THERE WERE A GREAT MANY THINGS TO SEE IN THERE.

“Just a little time bending, nothing serious,” Cunning hoots. She flies over to the jar containing Asirpa’s liver and pecks at it. Candid had brought it up again from the root cellar. Interestingly, she is puffed up and reticent in a way she’d never been with Blanket. Sakura wonders who she’s more upset to see: Cunning or Clever. 

I AM FINISHED, Clever sighs. IT TOOK A FEW YEARS BUT I SAW EVERYTHING.

“Neat.”

IT IS NO GREAT TASK FOR ME, JAYBIRD GIRL. THOUGH YOUR ADMIRATION IS APPRECIATED. 

Clever puts the makeshift pencil to the paper and begins drawing in long, careful strokes. A picture begins to emerge: a long thread, sinewy and flexible. Curled coyly at the end, like a cat’s tail. And something more. Clever draws little waves around the thread, almost like the virus is in motion.

“What does that mean?” Sakura asks.

I DO NOT PARTICULARLY KNOW, Clever says. IT WAS THE STRANGEST THING. DISEASE IS SOMETHING I KNOW WELL, AND YET I HAVE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING QUITE LIKE THIS. 

“In what way? How is it different?”

Clever drops the writing stick onto the table. Some of the charcoal breaks off and falls to the paper, creating whisper-light circles of charcoal dust where they land. For several seconds, Clever does not speak. They do not move, but Sakura feels an intense pressure in the air, heavy like the passing of a great storm. When she traces the path of Clever’s eyesight, Sakura finds Cunning at the end of it. 

The blue jay is still perched on the liver jar, but her form is...oscillating. It’s the best word Sakura can think of to describe what she’s seeing. Cunning is shifting in form, her beak blunting and becoming toothed before smoothing out again, her tail elongating and shortening, eyes open and shut winking in and out of existence on her face and neck. With a hoarse, grating call Cunning takes flight and whips out of the window and out of sight.

IT WAS THE STRANGEST THING, Clever repeats. They become a bit smaller and hop to Sakura’s doorway, their wings opening in preparation to lift up and away on the summer updrafts that clatter the bone chimes in the heat of the day.

THE PARTICLES ARE DYING. MOST ARE LONG DEAD. BUT THAT ONE. Clever blinks their oily eyes in Sakura’s direction. A shaft of sunlight breaks through the clouds and slides over Clever’s head, illuminating the prism of color within before vanishing again.

THAT ONE WAS LAUGHING AT YOU.

* * *

Clever does not stay to help with containing the epidemic. Rage fills every inch of Sakura’s body as she watches Clever fly away without another word to explain their refusal of assistance. She was with Clever at that other village from long ago--she knows its name now: Kawaba, and its population comes with names as well as faces--so Sakura is certain that Clever could help if they wanted to.

But they don’t want to. So they leave. Well, Sakura thinks to herself. Fuck Clever.

Sakura does not need the assistance of gods to defy nature. She has no intention of waiting out this outbreak in passive subservience to biology. When people started washing their hands regularly they cut the rate of infectious diseases in half. There is no need to pray for divine intervention. If the gods wanted to help, they certainly could. But Sakura’s not holding her breath over it.

When Sakura unfolds her angry arms and goes back inside the house, she sees Candid up in the rafters shivering. The treepie alights on Sakura’s proffered arm and Sakura pulls her in close, comforting Candid in the way she was instructed to: short, firm strokes on the back of the head. No touching the wings.

“I am not fond of their visits,” Candid warbles. 

“Who, Cunning or Clever?”

“Both. I have always disliked Clever’s apathy. But the Old One is very ancient and has earned her name in many ways. Not all of them are fun and games.”

“That’s what Blanket calls her. The Old One. Not the First One.”

Madara and Izuna bow to Sakura and take their leave. Sakura watches them both go until they disappear over the hill. Her house guards remain at a respectful distance. The grasses are getting long again and soon they’ll go to seed. Hopefully, so will some of her herbs in the garden.

“I am a descendant of Lord Blanket,” Candid says. “I admire and respect him. He is odd, but earnest. There are many things he can do, and yet he chooses to be kind and simple. It is not always a good thing to use one’s power so freely.”

(But he doesn’t have fun, does he?  _ She _ always wants to have fun.)

“I didn’t know they all had kids. It must be a trip having Nimble as a parent.”

“Izuna’s magpie partner Itsumade is one of Nimble’s,” Candid says. Her trembling begins to abate the more she speaks. “And Itsumade is both pleasant and generous. One cannot always predict the course of one’s children by the deeds of the parent. As many people are glad to remember.”

“That’s true,” Sakura says. She walks back indoors with Candid, stopping at the table to glare down at Clever’s sketch. “I probably shouldn’t talk so much shit, anyway. She might up and eat me to teach someone  _ else _ a lesson.”

“You would not be the first person she has devoured.”

“That is comforting to know, in its own way.”

Candid gives one final shudder and smooths her feathers down. She preens her tail feathers; she often did this during thoughtful moods. Sakura loves to watch the rhythm of it. It’s both form and function, a display of health and vanity for any birds watching nearby.

“We ought to go back to the main house with this sketch,” Candid says between feathers. “Now that we have more clues, there is work to be done.”

“Right as always.” Sakura waits for Candid to move to her shoulder and sink her claws into the fabric of Sakura’s attire before she starts running. She does not stop once on the way, even when she passes a deathly ill person crouching hopelessly on the side of the road. Without her special coverings, it just isn’t worth the risk of spreading disease to the inner compound.

Sakura did not mention to Izuna or Madara the return of the eyes on her back. It started when she’d led the others to her cabin for Clever’s assistance and had only grown in strength since then. Going outside had only made it more intense. Sakura doesn’t know if that’s better or worse: would she rather be watched in a small, dark place or out in the open where there’s no place to hide? 

But she can’t tell Madara and Izuna. Not anymore. After the looks on their faces yesterday when she told them what she’d sensed at the hot labs, she can’t stomach the thought of admitting it again. They’d probably think she was going crazy. Is she? 

Sakura feels the watcher’s attention from all sides at once, as though she’s the one being pressed between thin panes of glass for examination. Their scrutiny is hungry and unfeeling.

“You feel that, don’t you?” She asks Candid desperately.

“Eyes,” Candid whispers. “And too many mouths.”

* * *

Sakura spends the afternoon with Izuna in the strange metallic garden in the main house; the one that appears in every way like a traditional Uchiha garden but outfitted in artful twists of metal. Branches start out thick and solid and end thin and wispy. They are light enough at the ends to tremble in response to the vibrations traveling through the floor of the house. Even the grass looks soft and invited, though you’d cut your feet trying to walk through it.

The sketch of the virus is with Madara in the communication eyrie. He’ll be sending a copy with Sakura’s notes to Mito for Konoha’s medical archives. Hopefully there will be a future generation around to reference it as a historical document and nothing else.

“People assume these gardens are static because they see metal as unchanging,” Izuna remarks. He points to the tree in the corner of the garden, the artificial shade from which dapples the rest of the installment. The effect is disorienting in the right light: you think you have an idea where everything is and how it relates to everything else but then you shift and what you thought was, wasn’t.

(Look closer.)

“They don’t like this sort of garden because real gardens change. So people say. Things grow and go to seed and die. But the difference is just perspective. Look close.”

Sakura looks. Roots from the tree poke out from the false earth. And on the roots Sakura can see that years of tiny scratches have dulled the surface. It’s quite pretty. He points elsewhere, higher in the tree, where Sakura can see the start of a spot of rust.

“It’s a different sort of change,” Izuna says fondly. “Everything is affected by something else. Find the change and you can trace it back to the source. And from there even further back. It requires a different sort of appreciation.”

“Though,” he notes with a frown. “The rust isn’t really supposed to be there. It’s an interesting visual but unfortunately in this case the cause is a leak somewhere in the ceiling that we didn’t notice until too late. We need to fix this skylight. Pity it gives us so much trouble. But then, many beautiful things cause endless trouble.”

Sakura looks up. She hadn’t noticed that the hole letting in light was covered before; she’d assumed it was open to the elements but it wasn’t, really. It makes sense now that she thinks about it for more than five seconds. If there was a giant hole in the roof the whole house would be full of bugs and mildew. 

After a bit of searching, she finds it. At one corner of the skylight, water is coming through, dripping slowly onto the structures below and influencing their form down to the chemical level. Microscopic footsteps tracing back to a poorly sealed window.

(Come look for me. I’ll be waiting.)

* * *

Hundreds perish in the season,

Egg and young of birds as useful

As their slayer is unfriendly

To the ways and plans of farmers.

Retribution sometimes follows

On the footsteps of this monster.

Crows will fly among the savins,

Search among the bristling branches,

Find the nests of roots and bark strips

Armed with barbs and twined with brambles,

Full of eggs or young just gaping —

Dainty morsels those for crows tongues.

  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you are reading, pls comment. It is the nice thing to do!
> 
> 1\. Did you think Cunning was coming back?  
> 2\. Who will Sakura beat up to restore order?  
> 3\. Who are you going to beat up in real life to restore order?


	5. in the end, only one question remains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sakura concocts a plan, the crows find the source of the outbreak, and once again we go into a metaphorical cave

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Green Jay

Harsh the clamor when the robber

Comes to find [her] own home wasted,

Wild the screams and fierce the anger,

Vain the flights around the nesting.

Man admires [her] for [her] feathers,

Loves to watch [her] in the winter

Boldly fly among the poultry,

Snatching golden kernels from them,

But [her] peers alone can judge [her]

Justly, clearly, on [her] merits.

One and all they call him outlaw,

Hate [her], loathe [her], fear [her], spurn [her]

* * *

Sakura returns to her house alone, having sent Candid to gather the swiftest fliers from among the Uchiha crows. By the time a raucous flock descends upon her roof, Sakura is ready. 

(Are you?)

“I need you to go to Konoha,” she says. She hands each of them a rolled up paper to put in the message tubes attached to their legs. Including writing utensils isn’t necessary; they’re crows and will find something lying around.

“And when you get there, I need you to trace every single farmer who came to the market on the day Mito mentioned. Candid should have told you on the way. Mito is focused on the quarantine and the damage control. Our mission is to find the caster and end them. Do you understand?”

A smattering of caws indicate _yes._

“Good. From Konoha, trace every farmer back to their homestead or village. Try to go in pairs if you can. We need as many eyes as possible on this. Use the paper to keep track of names and locations. We want to find the earliest infection: who it was, and where it happened.”

Without her even saying so, the flock disperses in a flash of colored feathers. In one minute, all of them have passed over the horizon.

“Let’s get ready,” Sakura says to Candid. “It’s been a long time since we’ve sparred together, hasn’t it?”

* * *

The kama were a gift from Madara, who loves his weapons and wanted to gift Sakura her own. At first she was hesitant: Tsunade’s teachings always emphasized a lack of weapons. For a good reason, too. Combat medics need to prioritize medical tools in terms of physical space, and being a primary target for the enemy medica need to be agile, weighed down as little as possible. 

(When everything else is taken away, what more do you have than your flesh and bones?)

It’s been a long time since Sakura has carried anything more than knives, wire, and a few shuriken. But Madara had been so excited about his gift that Sakura couldn’t refuse. When all’s said and done she’s glad to have accepted.

Kama are farming implements and weapons both. Their dual identity hearkens back to an earlier time before Soldier became a lifetime profession and was instead a brief upheaval in an ordinary person’s life: before the soldiers, the land tillers were the ones to set aside their work and take up arms against aggressors--wielding not swords, not bows and arrows, but the very tools they used to reap the harvest.

Kama are sickles. Rice cutters. The handles are short and the blades are long, curved slightly, and razor sharp. Perfect for manual labor. They’d get you through a whole planting season if you maintained them well. 

The only visual difference between a farmer’s kama and Sakura’s is the nook between handle and blade, designed to catch an enemy staff should one come swinging.

There is another abandoned city not far away where the Uchiha Clan’s arms dealer lives. Sakura remembers going there once as a genin with Kaka-sensei, Naruto, and Sasuke in tow. 

The woman and her granddaughter living there were remnants of a once-vibrant clan; the Uchiha’s demise cut into their profits significantly, leaving only two behind where the rest had long departed to seek fortunes elsewhere.

It’s not a problem in this world. The Uchiha Clan is thriving and so is Lady Aia, the one who crafted Sakura’s kama and imbued them with _very_ expensive sealwork. Normally Sakura avoids the use of elemental chakra, relying instead on chakra’s purer form to power her explosive attacks. 

But these kama do the elemental work for her: the seals are saturated with fire chakra that regenerates itself when the kama are left out in the sun for a few hours.

Madara presented them to Sakura at the two-year mark of her coming. It was a sort of anniversary present, he’d said. Since they weren’t married, it was as good of a time as any to acknowledge Sakura’s choice to remain. 

Then he’d immediately offered to train her. Every day. For hours. Sakura bore the sessions with good humor; in time, she began to enjoy them.

Now, while she isn’t a master of the craft she can more than hold her own. And in combination with her massive strength and Candid’s wind jutsu, Sakura can tear up a battlefield with all the ferocity of an earth-shattering firestorm. 

Who needed precision when you could just blast away everything on the face of the planet? After a while, Sakura is politely asked to take her training a bit farther from the compound. 

She acquiesces gracefully. It’s a compliment more than it is anything else.

(It is possible to fear and love at the same time. You’ll nurture this if you’re smart.)

* * *

By the end of the second day Sakura knows the names, livelihoods, and salacious secrets of every farmer who’d been in Konoha the day the Deepwater Fever began to spread. It’s a walk in the park gathering evidence when people are desperate for you to leave and stop pooping all over the house. 

The crows narrow down the list of suspects from the market, determining with relative ease which farmer had been the likely candidate. 

Unsurprisingly, it’s a man hailing from Nichitsu. Sakura had long suspected this was the case, but you never knew. It could’ve been a farmer who’d visited Nichitsu from elsewhere and joined his fellow sellers on the trip to Konoha for safety in numbers. For this errand especially, it’s not helpful to act on suspicion alone.

But given the circumstances, Sakura is pretty sure she’d found her man; he’d been noticeably feverish that day at the market _and_ he was from Nichitsu _and_ he’d been handling raw meat without any sort of protective equipment. The ideal proliferator. 

When Sakura returns to the small camp the Nichitsu survivors have made outside the Uchiha compound, she finds out the man’s name, confirms that he’d been sick before going to market, and learns that he’d been on a trip deep into the tangled jungle in search of meat.

He hunts jungle jays, the oldest woman says. Or hunted, rather, she adds sadly. Not talking ones, she hastens to add. No Uchiha crows. These ones are wild and intelligent but only as much as any other wild corvid.

There’s a hunting cabin, she says. Deep in the tangles where a man can’t walk without a blade to cut away the flora that grows so voraciously. Strange creatures live there, they say. That hunter was the only one nuts enough to stay there for more than a few hours.

Thank you, Sakura says. She takes up her weapons, packs a simple field kit, alerts Madara, and sends Candid to the air to help them find their way.

In three days they arrive at the hunting cabin. Vines, roots, and moss have nearly swallowed it whole, but that likely did not matter to its owner. It’s a simple affair: there is space for two adults to lie down side by side to sleep and little more. 

A cold fire pit sits just outside it, and pressing against the outer wall opposite the doorway is a garden. It is also poorly maintained, half of it taken over by jungle. But there are still edible things growing there, determined to reach for the sun.

But dwarfing this attempt to domesticate a corner of the jungle is the mouth of a cave. At more than four stories tall the entrance is humbling on its own but it’s made all the more ominous by the bones and feathers littering the ground. 

They’re few and far between nearer the cabin, but as Sakura advances towards the cavern she has to step over more and more bones until the only way forward is to shuffle through them like a wader at low tide.

Madara makes a low clicking sound to get her attention. They aren’t alone; when Sakura stops and looks up she sees the jungle jays--hundreds of them--watching her mutely from perches carved out in the stone wall by rainwater and time. It’s unsettling to see crows so silent. The only other time she’s seen it is at the china-maker’s workshop. 

But perhaps it’s the same sort of thing. She is, after all, about to walk into a cave she’s never been in before to fight something she hasn’t identified. Her bones may very well join the ones outside, left to bleach in the sun after the jungle heat melts her flesh away.

“Stay here,” she orders Madara. “Candid will go with me. Someone needs to stay behind.” _In case I fall. In case I am swallowed up and become some future generation’s cautionary tale._

And Madara, with no words in reply, dips his chin at her in respect and deference to her decision.

“Something ancient and sinister is inside,” Candid says. As though to accentuate the point, Sakura hears a faint laughter reverberating over the damp stone, washing over her body like a tsunami of sound. 

It’s the laughter she heard at Nichitsu. Likely it’s the laughter everyone’s been hearing as they lay dying. Probably it’s the laughter Clever heard in the samples.

“Well I hope it’s had a long and fulfilling life.” Sakura stretches her arms over her head, does a few simple kata to make sure she’s good and loose. “Because I’m going to fucking kill it.”

“I will have something ready for you to eat upon your return,” Madara says. He kisses her forehead and then returns to the cabin to wait for her with perfect faith in her abilities.

The jungle jays follow Sakura and Candid when they enter the cave, hopping alongside in an undulating mass of garish plumage:blues and greens and yellows, bright like tropical fruit. Clattering talons against the rocky floor--the sounds reminiscent of soothing spring rains--are the only reminder of their speechless presence. 

Sakura and Candid descend into the darkness.

* * *

It isn’t a normal cave. Naturally.

It twists and turns in impossible ways and the litter of bones on the ground is too even to be natural, like whoever lived in here hired an interior designer with the suggestion to make everything as ominous as possible. 

A glowing fungus on the walls helpfully lights the path so that she doesn’t have to waste fuel or energy on her own light source. If it goes out at an inopportune time for dramatic effect, she has a backup. Sakura does not speak to the jungle jays and in turn they do not speak to her. Their talons continue clattering as they hop from femur to skull to scapula. 

“When we get to where this is going,” Sakura says to Candid, “stay with me. No flying until we know more about it. If it’s able to kill us both immediately as soon as we step in, it was probably going to kill us no matter what. No unnecessary risks.”

Candid, while powerful in her own right, is no god. She bobs her head in agreement and grips Sakura’s shoulder tighter.

The path grows wider, eventually becoming a cavern carpeted on all sides by the glowing fungus. It’s an eerie light: enough to see by, but not so bright that it casts strong shadows. The jungle jays begin chittering now, pouring into the cavern and taking up residence at the edges where the walls meet the floor.

At last, Sakura has come to the end. She knows because of the jungle jays. She knows because of the smell: a moist, cloying decay that causes her to stumble a bit before righting herself. 

But she knows most of all because of the little shrine in the center of the cavern. It’s identical to the shrine she’d journeyed to before, when Izuna was sick and she thought she’d be paying off her debt to Clever forever.

That shrine had been destroyed by tooth and fang and the ravages of time and disuse. This shrine is like new; in the strange light of the fungus Sakura would swear that the paint still looked wet. If she put her nose to the wood she would expect the scent of green, growing things. 

The discord is alarming, by far the most disturbing thing Sakura’s seen today: rotten, moldering flesh-smell hangs heavy in the air, emanating from one of the most beautiful structures she’s ever seen. 

(Come in.)

A voice beckons through the doorway, seeping out through lattice-covered windows and rolling playfully off of the delicately curved roof.

(Come in.)

It’s the laughing voice. The presence she’d felt on her back for days and days. Timbre like dry bones clatters over Sakura’s skin, leaving goosebumps in its wake. She’d punch out a million rabbit princesses before stepping one millimeter closer.

(Come in, jaybird girl.)

The voice is familiar. She doesn’t want it to be. It is so much easier to turn and leave. The epidemic will sort itself out eventually. People will die, maybe by the hundreds of thousands, but it _will_ end eventually once there are no more people close enough together to spread it. Misery will be all that’s left, but it will be over. One day, everything will be over. And she wouldn’t have to do anything to make it happen.

Sakura moves forward, every step leaden and unwilling. Easy to run away. Easy to accept that what is is what must be. Easy to say “well, there wasn’t anything more I could do.” The doorway looms. She stops with her toes against it. The light stops here; inside is all darkness but for the shifting glow outlining feathers, a long tail, a toothy beak.

Several beaks, actually.

“Devious,” Candid whispers. She presses her head into Sakura’s hair, trembling.

(I know you were taught manners. Come in and greet me. Know my face. Beautiful hatchling, flesh of my flesh. I love you so very much.)

Sakura steps over the threshold. 

* * *

See her form: watch how she goes. 

In this place, Sakura is the guest. She hears the keratin scrape of talons on clay floor tiles and hesitates, falling motionless like prey before digging her nails into the palms of her hands--the pain reminds her of who she is and why she chose to come here.

(I see you,) a creature rumbles. And now Sakura realizes why it had been so odd: the voice emanates not only from the great being before her but also from hundreds of beaks arrayed in a circle outside. The jungle jays’ eyes all glow and their open mouths cant upward, multiplying the voice infinitely in a laughing chorus.

On the clay tiles a circle of fire ignites, exposing the complex lines of a massive prison seal and revealing to Sakura who exactly has been dogging her every step for weeks now.

The great body unfurls and reveals itself carefully as the creature moves within the confines of its ancient cage, the embers of the sealwork illuminating what the shadows had hidden: conical teeth line numerous beaks black and shiny; then come the red-rimmed eye sockets with eyes long rotted away; here comes the long, long neck and sinewy body lined with feathers blue, black, yellow, and green; there, the claws balance her posture at the wrists of her wings; at last uncoils the long lizard tail, boned and arrayed with stiff plumage.

A familiar picture. All of it wrong. The jay shifts endlessly and terribly: her feathers, skin, and bones cycle from birth to death, lively and necrotic. Over and over again bits of her fall to sodden pieces that vanish from the floor and reappear whole again on her body. 

(Isn’t polite to stare.)

“What _are_ you?” Sakura forgets all of the fear she’s ever had. Morbid curiosity has overtaken her entire being. Candid, unwilling to die for the sake of Sakura’s curious nature, nips sharply at the loose skin of her human's ear, reminding Sakura to take out her kama in readiness. Sakura’s met Nimble, after all. Just because something is polite doesn’t mean it won’t mess you up. The kama come out from Blanket's satchel and fit comfortably into Sakura's hands.

(It doesn’t surprise me that she didn’t tell. So _ashamed_ of me, she is.)

“Who is she?”

(The bitch who trapped me here, girl. You know _Her._ Do not insult me with facsimiles of ignorance. The mark on your back is all the confirmation I ever would have needed.)

The jungle jays erupt in a cacophony of jeers and wails. As though it has perked up to listen, Sakura’s soulmark begins burning like an inferno.

“Cunning,” Sakura says. In a way, she’d always known there was more to Cunning than met the eye. “She trapped you here.” 

_But why?_

(She decided she’d had enough, _that’s_ why. Little cunning Cunning, the charming trickster. You’d never have known by the look of her that she once preyed on humans for sport. Always in search of the next delight, she found joy in chaos and laughter. But before she pulled errant girls from the void and changed shape to entertain travelers, Cunning was once rather more fond of a different sort of chaos.)

“She knew you?” Sakura hears a sound and almost, _almost_ looks over her shoulder.

(She _is_ me, jaybird girl. We were once one being, beautiful and strong. Feared by all and beholden to none. What is the purpose of strife? You humans fight endlessly against the tides of existence, forgetting over and over again that there is no meaning to your struggles. Your arrogance is absolute and your dissension toothless. And _we_ reminded you of it.)

“Cunning doesn’t believe that,” Sakura insists. “She cares about people. She’s weird, all right, but she cares. She helps people. If you’re trying to pin the epidemic on her, it won’t work.”

But she remembers Clever and that night in the cottage when they’d looked into the sample and came out with a tale of laughter. Clever had locked eyes with Cunning and said so much in their silence. What had they known?

(Your doubt unmasks you. You always wondered, didn’t you? Why such a powerful, reckless being would take such interest in the mundane? Guilt is a powerful motivator.)

“The disease...the one from the labs…but someone put the books there for me. So I could find the source.”

(We didn’t _make_ the virus, of course. Why improve on nature's own perfection? But we were there to ensure its discovery and its escape. It was _fun,_ don’t you see? One of our finest tricks. They thought they were safe with their laboratories and their silly plastic suits. They thought they had control. They thought their toil had a weight of its own. And we showed them how they were wrong. They _appreciated_ our lessons. Tricks of the flesh and tricks of the mind. And then she tore us apart, leaving me behind so that she can pull silly pranks on farmers. You cannot depend on anything, jaybird girl. Not even yourself.)

“What the hell are you even talking about? You _are_ the one who started the epidemic, aren’t you? You gave it to that hunter who stayed in the cabin. You killed Nichitsu.”

The jungle birds hopped closer, the circle tightening. Candid trembled, her whole body tense in preparation to take flight.

(A necessary errand. I wished to get _Her_ attention, and I did. Though I ought to have expected her to arrange things so that you showed up instead. She thinks you can kill me. She is wrong. You cannot kill decay. You cannot kill despair. I will be with you always.)

“I don’t care what Cunning used to do,” Sakura says. “I stopped being obsessed with the past a long time ago. What matters is who she is now. She gave the Uchiha their Sharingan after the Great War. What do you call that?”

A cackle, multiplied hundreds of times over.

(I call that a consolation prize for having poisoned the minds of humanity to the point where they all started killing one another. Easy for _you_ to say her past doesn’t matter. _You_ haven’t been on the receiving end of one of her nastier tricks. She might have left behind her talent for destroying flesh, but she kept the chaos of the spirit underwing. You won’t think of her so kindly when you wake up one day thinking you’re a fish and that everyone who ever loved you is dead.)

Sakura spins the kama in her hands. It’s a flamboyant move designed to encourage one’s opponent to think twice before engaging in combat. _I’m good enough to do that,_ the spinning kamas taunt. _You don’t want to see what I can do if you come even closer._

“I’m tired of talking about this,” Sakura says. “I don’t care what you’re trying to make me think, but it’s not going to work. I live in this world and I’m going to make sure it has the chance to keep on going. Even if that means getting my hands dirty.”

(Why? What is the point? Why struggle? Why not cast yourself madly into the whims of existence, living only in each moment as it passes by?)

“Because that’s stupid. Maybe things like you can dick around doing whatever, but humans don’t have that luxury. Sometimes work is necessary to change your outcome. Things don’t just happen because they’re meant to happen. Obviously.”

(Oh, I can see why Blanket favors you. The act of drudgery fascinates him. How quaint. And _She_ always did encourage your little hobbies. A free clinic in the woods. How _progressive_ of you. How noble. Did she make you feel something when she broke your tether? Did she help you measure your worth from the inside out rather than from the outside looking in? What difference does it make if you act to prove something to yourself rather than to another person? What _meaning_ have you gleaned from your medicinal errands?)

“Are you trying to turn me against Cunning? Is that what you want? Fighting? I don't care what you think, and you're not going to trick me into giving up. I don't have anything to prove to _you_ either.”

(I want to be whole again. I want her to embrace what we once were. It is not wicked to be humanity’s detritivore.)

“If you’re making them sick on purpose using the jungle jays, that makes you a predator. And your plan to be whole again isn’t going to happen. Cunning isn’t here, _I’m_ here.”

(So you are. I have overestimated how much she cares about humans, it seems. She could have come here at any time to try and stop me. Instead she let all of you fester while she wallowed in her shame.) 

Sakura spins the kama again. “Well, I don’t know what’s going on in her head, but I know why I’m here and what I’m going to do.”

(And what is that?)

“I’m going to stop you. Even if you can’t be killed, I can drive you further back into darkness. Just because decay and despair won't die for good doesn’t mean the solution is giving up. I don't care if I have to come back here to kill you again a thousand times over. I'm still going to stop you and everyone like you. Every time. Cunning was right to cut you away. I don't know why she bothered keeping you around but I'm going to finish the job either way.”

(For now.)

"For now."

(Why? The disease is spread. People will go on dying even after you kill me.) The great bird tilts its head, curious. It doesn't have the slightest bit of tension in its body.

“I’ve been gardening lately,” Sakura says. The jungle jays hop closer. “And I’ve been learning so much about how things grow. One thing you have to keep in mind is that if something gets infected, you can’t just pick off the leaves that are sick. You have to dig it out at the source, roots and all, and burn it.”

“Plus,” Sakura adds, tipping her chin to signal Candid, “I’ve kind of already got some god-killing experience.”

With a flick of her wrists, the kama burst into green flame.

* * *

Be [her] plumage light and dainty

[She] is cousin to the raven,

Near of kin is [she] to Corvus,

Black [her] heart, and black [her] kindred,

False [her] colors, false [her] nature.

All [her] beauty is delusion,

All [her] tricks are tricks of darkness;

Grim Chocorua through his cloud veil

Ever looks askance upon [her].

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. What weapons are you using to kill the god of your choice?  
> 2\. Why are all these birds in caves?  
> 3\. Who read The Hot Zone and was like "why is this so familiar" on chapter 1?


	6. which of us is the thief? which of us is the trickster?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sakura fights a god, Sakura KILLS a god (sort of), and Sakura eats some soup

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well here we are at the end of this story and collection. If you read this one, I hope you enjoyed me trying to one-up myself in weirdness.

crazy jay blue)

demon laughshriek

ing at me

your scorn of easily

hatred of timid

& loathing for(dull all

regular righteous

comfortable)unworlds

* * *

The jungle jays leap into the air all at once, screaming and flapping and dive-bombing the shrine. Candid is ready for them. She is only one bird against dozens or hundreds but she is an Uchiha crow and more than a match for all their numbers. 

A flap of her wings sends a powerful wind jutsu to knock them back, their bodies hitting the solid granite of the cave wall. Most do not get up from where they fall. 

A second flap sends a cutting wind that slashes through delicate feathers and tender meat. The jays that are not hit flee the cave in terror, their fear briefly cutting through the bonds of the technique controlling them.

Devious shrieks (rage despair suffering) and opens her many mouths, letting loose a miasma that is, somehow, even more foul-smelling than the ambient aromas from the great bird’s rotting body. Candid flits back in through the doorway to flap the noxious fumes away but she isn’t quick enough; Sakura gets a whole faceful of the stuff.

She was ready for it, though: activating the seal on her forehead releases some of Clever’s chakra into her body. It had been an experiment two years ago; Sakura wanted to see if incorporating another being’s chakra into her seal would change how it worked. Because of Clever’s affinity for healing, Sakura thought storing some would prove useful.

It was and is: everywhere the droplets making up the cloud make contact with Sakura’s skin, that spot immediately goes necrotic and wants to drop away. Clever’s chakra doesn’t stop the reaction but repairs Sakura’s body faster than the cloud tries to kill it off.

(Stupid ravens,) Devious hisses. (They think themselves so regal while they dig in the garbage for shinies like the rest of them.)

With a nod at Candid, Sakura springs forward, slashing the kama through the air in a crosshatch pattern. The motion sends a net of green fire blazing through the air and Candid whips it up into hellfire. It passes harmlessly over the wood and clay of the shrine--odd--and alights on Devious, who screams and writhes within the prison that holds her.

(So easy to kill me like this,) Devious wails. (You would destroy a bird in a cage. Let me out and I will remind you what it is to fear pestilence. Your body will betray you always.)

“Not a chance,” Sakura says. “I’m not here for a dick-measuring contest. I’m here to do my job and keep you from killing off more of my villagers. So you can jot that down.”

Truthfully, Sakura is terrified. The smell and the darkness of the cave and the flashing teeth activate a small, mouselike part of her brain that wants to claw its way out of her skin screaming. She would like nothing more than to turn and run. 

But that isn’t how humanity got to where it is now, she reminds herself. And that isn’t how humanity is going to move forward. Sakura is making her way into the future, even if she has to drag herself there by the nails of one hand.

The kama have almost a mind of their own, sending ropes of caustic, green flame to burn fruit-bright feathers and char the dying flesh underneath. With any luck, Sakura can get the fires hot enough to burn through the flesh faster than it can mend itself. Fire is hungry and seldom tires of eating.

Samehada comes to mind, that sharkskin sword Kisame had carried with him. It was sentient and had preferences and opinions about people, a trait that had creeped Sakura out quite thoroughly back then. Now she’s a little jealous. 

Sakura’s kama--she isn’t going to name them; she’s not that type of person--are halfway to sentient, their embedded chakra thrumming with excitement at the opportunity to burn. 

With a burst of chakra Sakura leaps forward right into Devious’ breastbone, the clay tiles underneath giving way in equal reaction to the strength of her push. Before Sakura makes it a foot off the ground the tiles have repaired themselves once more.

The kama whistle as they slice through the air, cutting an X into the great bird’s chest and crushing the organs underneath. But Devious only hunches down and by the time Sakura has jumped back the bird is whole again--as whole as she can be at any given moment.

(Not good enough. What good are you if you can’t even kill a canary in a coal mine?)

Sakura gives Devious no answer. She continues fighting even though she’d much rather leave and tell Madara a different story of what she found here.

(And you, daughter of Blanket. You betray your own Mother. Your own kind. We were  _ born _ to trick this world.)

Candid’s only response is to send out an even sharper gust of wind.

There is no way of telling time in this place; Sakura only knows the minutes pass because she soon begins to tire. Clever’s chakra is almost gone and after that she will be vulnerable to the miasma.

“Time to finish this up,” she grunts at Candid, who flies directly above Devious, high and tiny against the impossibly tall inner ceiling. The treepie distracts Devious, who snaps irritably at Candid while Sakura encircles the great bird with fire seals attached to throwing knives. 

(I see you,) Devious says. (You cannot trick a trickster. Not this one.)

“If that’s what makes you feel better, go ahead and think that.” 

Sakura throws her kama in the air and makes a seal with both hands. A little trick Blanket taught her as a way to sanitize a bunch of medical instruments all at once. She’d nearly burned down her hut on the first try.

The kama hover in the air, fiery lines connecting with the fire seals below to make a net that expands to become a dome inside which Devious is barely visible. Candid scrambles out of the shrine through a gap in the latticework. 

(You cannot kill me, jaybird girl. You cannot kill sorrow and death.)

“Let’s find out.”

Sakura shifts her hands into the second seal and the green fire erupts inward, the fire so bright that Sakura has to close her eyes, covering them with her hands and using the last bit of Clever’s chakra to keep her retinas from burning. 

Devious cries and cries, sinking down and away. When the fires die down there is nothing but ash and the echo of laughter: light and bubbling and free. A few viscous bubbles arise and agitate the ash but then they too are quiet.

“We killed her.” Sakura stands on her tiptoes as though that will somehow help her see the mess better. “To be honest, I wasn’t sure if that was going to work.”

“She will come back one day,” Candid says from atop Sakura’s head. “There are some things that will never truly leave us. But that is why we toil. We can plan and prepare and warn the ones who come after of the signs.”

“Guess that’s all we can hope for, in the end.”

Sakura picks up her kama, looks down at the ashes, thinks about taking a sample, thinks better of it, and then leaves the cavern. There is no longer anything living here. The silence, the ashes, the fallen jungle jays, and the too-clean shrine are all that remain once Sakura and Candid enter the tunnels. 

* * *

Sakura emerges into the light, picking her way daintily through the bones littering the mouth of the cave. True to his word, Madara is waiting for her at the hunting cabin. A fire roars in the pit, cooking whatever it is he’s got in the cast iron pot.

Greeting Madara with a kiss, Sakura melts into his arms, grateful that here at least she doesn’t have to be strong  _ all _ the time. She can let go of the saucy humor she uses to cope and she can admit, even if just for a moment, that part of her still feels like a scared little girl protecting her friends in a dark forest. 

Madara does not relish in her moments of weakness but he does support her through them. There are no tears but she does tremble, free of the burden of combat-frenzy and the pinprick focus required of it.

“You were successful in your errand,” Madara says. It isn’t a question. It never is.  


“I think so,” Sakura says. “There was...I don’t know what it was. I’ll tell you later. I think I want to talk to Blanket about it first. And go back to that lab.”

“Perhaps with this sudden influx of free time you can figure out how to use that object you were so enamored with.”

Sakura smiles gratefully. Marara’s sense of humor is dry and so subtle most people don’t notice it, but she acknowledges the tacit suggestion to relax for what it is. 

She accepts a bowl of root vegetable soup and sits on a stump to eat it, freeing her mind from the cave and from the tasks that still lay before her. There’s always work to be done. Just because you kill a god doesn’t mean you get a pass on everything else.

Distantly, Sakura hopes that Madara and Candid keep their mouths shut about all of this. After everything with Cunning and the soulmark Sakura would love some partial anonymity. It’s probably too much to hope for. Maybe Clever’s chakra knew what had happened and would somehow inform its owner of the proceedings. And there was no greater gossip in the world than Clever.

The soup is fantastic. Madara always keeps a bag of salt in his pocket for long trips. And from the picked-over look of the garden patch, he must have picked his way through the weeds to find the remaining edible plants surviving untended. 

Sakura herself feels a bit untended. Much still needs to be done before the week is up. Before the day is up, even. There are messages to send, people to treat, hypotheses to test. And surely someone somewhere needs yelling at. Could be her, even. But they can wait the time it takes to eat a bowl of soup, Madara reminds her gently. And so Sakura eats her soup.

A hoarse, mournful cry ripples out like waves from above, a heartfelt eulogy in minor key. Sakura looks up to find its owner circling overhead: Cunning undulates in the sky at low altitude, shifting between her bird and ancient forms, sometimes taking on the shape of other creatures Sakura couldn’t begin to identify.

(I still love you) 

Cunning does not look down or greet Sakura; she circles and sings endlessly and so sadly that Sakura feels tears gather at the corners of her eyes. In spite of how glad she is to have completed her errand, Sakura is not unaware of the consequences of it. 

She looks up and wonders what Cunning was like as a whole being. If she could have ever changed on her own or if it was always necessary to cut out pieces of oneself to remake one’s image. If an entire Cunning would have rescued her from the void into which the rabbit princess flung her so cruelly. 

But then, Sakura admits, that’s what gardening was like sometimes. You nurtured what you liked, you threw out what you didn’t. You harvested, and then you did it all over again the next year come hell or high water. It isn’t a perfect metaphor for humanity (or crows) but it’s pretty damn close for Sakura’s needs at the moment. She’s exhausted and even a simple analogy will do.

“How is it?”

“Tastes good. You’re going to put Chiharu out of a job.”

“It isn’t  _ that _ good, Sakura.” 

(I will give humans credit for one thing only: you lock horns with darkness even when it is futile and pick yourselves up after even if you don’t win. I suppose there is something beautiful in that, in the end.)

Cunning opens her massive jaw wide and a dark-shining-crack appears in the sky in front of her. Inside it Sakura can see stars, millions of them, suspended in an inky blackness, each one of them another time and another world. One of them is hers.

Was hers.

Cunning swoops into the crack and disappears, flicking her long, elegant tail like a fish as she goes.

(goodbye)

* * *

thief crook cynic

(swimfloatdrifting

fragment of heaven)

trickstervillain

raucous rogue &

vivid voltaire

you beautiful anarchist

(i salute thee

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poems Used
> 
> “The Blue Jay” by Frank Bolles
> 
> ("crazy jay blue)...") by e e cummings
> 
> If you read this, leave me a comment here at the end! I'd love to hear from you. Even if you are reading this fic in THE FUTURE, I still would like to hear from you! It is NOT weird at all to leave comments on works that have been done for a while, whatever your personal definition for "a while" is.


End file.
